Taking his grandfather’s memory of a wartime incident as inspiration for his Arts University College of Bournemouth graduate film, Chris Allen juxtaposes animation styles to transport us from a smooth beachside present to an angular past of aerial attack where images collide and splinter into new forms.

BrokenWave from Chris Allen on Vimeo.

via The Curious Brain

Niki & The Dove – The Fox from WINTR on Vimeo.

Cellule from Thomas Pons on Vimeo.

Back to the Start from Visually Pithy on Vimeo.

And here’s the making of:

Bird Benny from Kristof Luyckx on Vimeo.

Aesop: Kingdom of Frogs from Jesse Ewles on Vimeo.

Rule: use only the graphic elements of the letters without adding outside parts

Bran Dougherty-Johnson brings Ji Lee’s wordplay book to clean and playful motion graphical life in the Word as Image promo.

Word as Image (by Ji Lee) from jilee on Vimeo.

Kyrielle from Boris Labbé on Vimeo.

If you’re in the mood for some in film hide and seek the team have a little challenge for you; “We hid one movie character and one TV show character in the background people. One hint : they are both rednecks!”

ELECTROSHOCK – ESMA 2011 from Electroshock-movie on Vimeo.

In a sumptuous room an old clock doesn’t get tired of counting the passage of time. Sitting along the table there is a wholly stunned society that, instead of talking vivaciously, takes advantage of the lunch time almost as a rigorous march. Among the recruited commensals, there is also a young cadet, Alma, who, with her jaunty attitude, doesn’t seem too much predisposed to follow the dictated choreography but, on the contrary, she shows herself more intent on distorting it. Will Alma’s fiery instinct able to melt the cold and rigid clichè that, in and out, surround her?

Heartburn from heartburnfilm on Vimeo.

Copia A (3D animated short film by Trexel Animation) from Trexel Animation on Vimeo.

Rome – Two Against One from Chris Milk on Vimeo.

Moving Pictures from Nadav Nachmany on Vimeo.

“There is a kind of cult in the world, made of men and women of all social backgrounds, of all ages, races and religions. It’s the sect of the sleepless. I am part of it. The men who do not belong to the sect sometimes say to those who are part of: ‘if you can not sleep you can still read, watch TV, study or do anything else’. This kind of tips deeply bother components of the sect of insomniacs. The reason is very simple: those who suffer from insomnia has only one obsession: to fall asleep.

Helped by references to some of the greatest masters of surrealism, and starring Frédéric Chopin’s nocturne for this new short, I tried to show the beauty and the purity of dreams, and the bizarre behavior of our images and thoughts flow, into them.”

mon rêve from cento lodigiani on Vimeo.

Via Brain Pickings.

Prior to this film, the Ohlenkamp’s created warm up video Organizing the Bookcase.

Created using Plexus and After Effects, Rozee “manually keyframed 19 mask paths in AE. There’s over 20,000 keyframes in the piece, but it needed to be that detailed to achieve the fluidity of movement….” That’s a load of work but worth every second. Apparently we’ll get to see ‘Schtick Man! strut his stuff again in a version of John Travolta’s Staying Alive dance. I can’t wait!

Billy Jean Plexus from Colin Rozee on Vimeo.

Road Rage from Nick Khoo on Vimeo.

Dutch artist and filmmaker Rosto is well know for creating intriguing, dark themed work which spans multiple forms of media. His latest, The Monster of Nix, is an existential animated musical fairytale, suitable for kids from 10 to 100. Rosto joins us to discuss not pinning yourself down to a single creative area and how to go about creating a musical that doesn’t suck after surviving five years of development hell.

I don’t consider myself necessarily to be an animator or a filmmaker or whatever. I call myself an artist because there’s no other word.

Showlinks
The Monster of Nix
The Monster of Nix Facebook
Mind My Gap
Thee Wreckers

Ed Barrett’s graduation film from the R.C.A. is a tale of isolation and solitude as a tower crane worker struggles to come to terms with everyday life. Created entirely in After Effects, Barrett’s darkly funny animation is a hugely stylish piece of work, that’s bound to catch the eye of future employers.

Man Up from Animade on Vimeo.

The Monster of Nix (2011)
Life is good in the idyllic fairy tale village of Nix… Until an all-devouring monster appears. Young Willy has to fight it. Alone…

TOPO GLASSATO AL CIOCCOLATO by milkyeyes from MILKYEYES on Vimeo.

In a near future, we will learn to fear what is to come.

If like us you can’t wait to find out more, visit k3loid.com for more details.

Keloid Trailer – A Short Film by BLR from BLR_VFX on Vimeo.

NEWMEDIA from MOLI on Vimeo.

Lavomatic from Raphaëlle et Quentin on Vimeo.

Rightly, Paths of Hate is in the running for an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short at this year’s Academy Awards. Nenow also won the SIGGRAPH Jury Award where he presented a nice lengthy making of session for the project.

Damian Nenow’s SIGGRAPH presentation at Autodesk booth from Platige Image on Vimeo.

And if you’re still hungry for more info on the production process, Motionographer have an in depth interview with Nenow.

I’m pretty sure the full version of Paths of Hate currently on YouTube isn’t official and will get pulled down before too long so here’s the trailer just in case.

PATHS OF HATE long trailer from Platige Image on Vimeo.

FRAMES from Martin Thoburn on Vimeo.

Music is a major component of any film but can spell life or death for an animated piece, so completely building your film around its soundtrack is a risky gamble. Or Bar-El’s first venture into 3D animation, BEAT is a gamble that pays off in spades. Or joins us to discuss the marriage of drums and animation and the great results you can achieve once you’re willing to jump off the creative cliff.

I knew I didn’t want to make a wannabe film.

Showlinks
Or Bar-El
Bezalel Academy of Arts & Design
Autodesk Maya
Adobe After Effects

keep drawing from studio shelter on Vimeo.

Ah from studio shelter on Vimeo.

BEAT (2011)
In a cubic world, where work is one repetitive slow tempo, one worker discovers inside them another form of expression.

tribute to drive from tom haugomat & bruno mangyoku on Vimeo.

MGMT – All We Ever Wanted Was Everything from oneedo on Vimeo.

Ned explains his working process on his blog.

Amp! from Steve May on Vimeo.

The Night We Were Kings from Cube Creative on Vimeo.

The Loner from fla on Vimeo.

Streamschool (Patakiskola) from Péter Vácz on Vimeo.

If you enjoyed that (if you didn’t check you haven’t dropped your soul somewhere), Vácz goes into the details of making Stream School in this post.

Hutchinson Serenity from fortiche studio on Vimeo.

Killer Toys from Dongjie Zhu on Vimeo.

Our last mention of French outfit CRCR was the wildly kinetic Todor & Petru; their new piece Vésuves plays at a much more languid pace with a transfixing tri-tone palette.

Vésuves from CRCR on Vimeo.