Creation Time

It's been so long since I've posted any animations!

Finally, it's time to redress the situation with my latest find.

This humorous 1995 short by Thomas Meyer-Hermann of the German studio 

Film Bilder won 1st prize at Festivals in Tampere, Krakow and Ruesselsheim.

The Cloudy Dog

A sweet and soft video by the young Japanese animator Asami Ike, 

for anyone who's ever loved a dog.

Wolf, Sheep & Cabbage

This animated short by the Israeli director Gil Alkabetz provides a winding, surreal solution 

to the traditional riddle. Winner of the Funniest Film Award at Annecy in 1997.

Solipsist

The amazing visionary art of Andrew Thomas Huang combines puppetry, performance and CGI.

 Mesmerizing and unlike anything I've seen before.

Man & Whale

It's been too long since I've featured any animated videos on Animalarium!

This award-winning film created by animation master Koji Yamamura 

for Greenpeace in 2007 is short & sweet. And moving too...

Monsters & Riddles

This wildly inventive animated short was produced by the Armenian director 
Robert Sahakyants in 1983. The story was inspired by The Talking Fish, 
a fairytale written by the great Armenian poet Hovhannes Tumayan. 
Discovered thanks to Your Daily Cartoon.

A Wedding & A Funeral

This short was directed by Evelyn Lambart, the first female animator in Canada. 

Born in 1914 into a family of artists, she started to work at the National Film Board of Canada 

in 1942 and became the closest collaborator of animation legend Norman McLaren. 

Between 1942 and 1965 the two co-directed six films and worked together on many others.

During this period Lambart animated and directed only one film without McLaren, 

O Canada, but when in the early 1960s he turned his attention to ballet films, 

she decided instead to follow her own creative path in animation.

 Lambart and McLaren at work, © 1948 NFB

She perfected a technique involving paper and linoleum cutouts transferred to a black

 lithograph plate which she would then paint and animate. This approach was possibly inspired

 by the work of Lotte Reiniger, the pioneer German animator who worked at the NFB in the 1970s.  

Lambart went on to produce seven award winning animated shorts between 1968 and 1980;

 I have chosen her interpretation of an old English folk tune, Mr. Frog-Went-A-Courting.

(I know the song very well because when the girls were little we used to listen to it 

in Pete Seeger's delightful American Folk Songs for Children.)

Sweet as a Lion

Boniface's Holiday is a prize-winning 1965 animation by the great Russian director Fyodor Khitruk. 

It's funny, very sweet, and it showcases a variety of wonderful and innovative graphic ideas.

If there are children around you show it to them, I think they will enjoy it!

The Spirit of Butterflies

I wish you all a beautiful Spring with this amazing animation 

by Russian director Andrey Khrzhanovskiy

Petits Oiseaux Chéris

These two excerpts come from the wonderfully poetic and deliciously subversive 1980 animated feature
Le Roi et l'oiseau (The King and the Mocking Bird).  The movie was conceived in 1946 
by French animator Paul Grimault in collaboration with poet and screenwriter Jacques Prévert, 
but production came to a halt in 1950 because of financial problems and a dispute between Grimald
 and his producer, and was only restarted in 1977. Since its release, it has been hailed as a masterpiece
 and has provided an important source of inspiration for animators such as Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata.

Chinese Brushstrokes

Thanks to the YouTube channel Obscure Animation, I am very happy to showcase for the first time

 a video from China. And a lovely one it is, too. This award winning 1960 short was the earliest example

 of brush painting animation. It was produced at Shanghai Animation Film Studio, and co-directed

 by Tang Cheng and Te Wei, who is also generally credited with inventing the technique.

The watercolor paintings of Qi Baishi inspired this unique approach to animation, which was reprised 

three years later in The Buffalo Boy's Flute. After a decade of Cultural Revolution

 had all but destroyed the Chinese animation industry, Te Wei utilized again the technique

 for his 1988 masterpiece Feeling from Mountain and Water. Hopefully this is the first

of many new interesting eastern discoveries...

Sun and Ice

This 1936 cartoon by Olga Khodatayeva was one of the first produced at the great 

Russian studio Soyuzmultfilm. It's story is based on one of the many Eskimo legends 

and rituals celebrating the return of the sun after two months of winter darkness. 

Many thanks to Niffiwan for the upload!

Performers, Acrobats & Clowns

The last act of this year's Circus festival is an episode from the very charming and funny

2003 tv series Creature Comforts created by Nick Parks at Aardman Animations.

The original concept utilizes bits of interviews with members of the public,

whose voices are then used to animate a long series of animal characters. 

Especially interesting to those of you who can understand English, 

since the best thing about these shorts is the humorous matching 

between the words spoken and the situations portrayed.

The Shrine

Thanks to my daughter and music connoisseur Michelle for sharing with me 

this beautiful and haunting video for The Shrine/An Argument by Fleet Foxes. 

Directed by the very talented Sean Pecknold, who is also brother of Ryan, 

the band's frontman.

Metamorphosis of Love

Many thanks to Topipittori for their post about Michel Ocelot.
 It reminded me of how much I love this wonderful episode 
from the 2000 animated feature Princes & Princesses,
and I just have to repost it. If you love this too,
visit Topipittori's blog for more!

Gagarin

After flies, earthworms, and ants, another funny Russian video featuring little creatures.
This animated short was created by Alexjij Kharitidi at Second Frog animation group.
It won awards at Cannes, Annecy, and other major festivals, and was nominated 
for an Academy Award in 1996. Many thanks to Irina Troitskaya for sharing it with me! 

Death of a Siren

This darkly surreal and poetic tale was created by the Belgian master of animation Raoul Servais in 1968.

The website of the Raoul Servais Foundation contains lots of info about the author and his works.

Ant Adventures

This sweet and funny short about the travels and encounters of a little lost ant 

was created by the master of Russian animation Eduard Nazarov in 1983.

Pino's Playthings

Pino Pascali was an important Italian artist and sculptor (I'll explore this side of his work 

in a future post) who also worked extensively in advertising. He was born in Bari in 1936

 and moved to Rome in 1955 to study at the Academy of Art. In 1958 he started a long 

and fruitful collaboration with the animator and producer Sandro Lodolo,

 which ended abruptly when Pascali died in an accident at the age of 32. 

These were the years when Carosello, the first advertising format introduced by Italian state television RAI

in 1957, was its most popular show. Some special rules contributed to make this daily evening show

 a family favorite especially loved by children. Firstly, in each advertising spot the sales pitch was confined 

to 30 seconds at the end a humorous sketch which lasted almost two minutes, and the product name

 could only be mentioned in this final segment. Moreover, each spot would go on air only once, forcing 

the creative teams working for the various companies to constantly create and produce new stories, 

most of which were conceived as episodes in a series. Lodolo and Pascali worked together 

on numerous animations for Carosello, including the one above for ice cream manufacturer Algida. 

It's one of the episodes written and designed by Pascali and centered on Salvador the Matador 

and his fights in the arena against a variety of crazy bulls such as Arista il Trasformista

 (unfortunately I haven't found any other videos of the innovative spots created by Pascali). 

Pascali was an exuberant and sensitive man who approached life and work with spontaneity and freedom, 

simplicity and endless imagination. He loved the creative process, and considered his work a form of play.

With the same childlike spirit he continuously experimented with new ideas and materials in his art 

and played games and tricks on people with his artist friends. Pascali was also a reckless driver, 

and his passion for speed came to a tragic ending when he crashed his motorcycle in a roman street.

Scottish terrier, 1963

Pascali was very fond of animals, and often featured them in his advertising works and sculptures. 

All the drawings and sketches in this post were created in the early sixties for various advertising and

 animation projects, and they were made available online thanks to the Pino Pascali Archive 

established by the Contemporary Art Gallery Frittelli in Firenze.

Castles Made of Sand

After the Arctic, Co Hoedemann visited a world of sand and its strange industrious inhabitants.

 This stop-motion animation made with sand, foam rubber, and wire won the Oscar in 1977

 for Best Animated Short Film. A bit long, but highly recommended!