Sorry for the lack of posts from me lately. I’m in the middle of a week-long road trip from Savannah to San Francisco, and it doesn’t leave me much time for writing. I did, however, want to make a quick post about one of the pioneers of animation that laid a lot of groundwork for motion graphics.

Calling Len Lye an animator probably isn’t accurate, though. Actually, calling him anything isn’t really accurate. He was a difficult to categorize artist/experimental filmmaker/writer that made his mark in just about every art form possible.

In the context of motion graphics, though, Lye did two important things: 1) Like Oskar Fischinger, Lye showed how the unification of music and abstract visuals can create enchanting experiences. 2) Lye pushed the medium in new directions, coming up with novel methods for creating his visuals by etching and scratching onto black film stock.

The resulting wild dances of color are a testament to the joys of experimental filmmaking/animation. May we all draw inspiration from Lye’s pioneering spirit.

For a much better write-up on Len Lye, check out this post on City of Sound.

Megunica

The Famous Group

Dark, robotic pieces aren’t new by any means, but this short from Polynoid has such a captivating, chilling beauty. Plus, it’s nice to know that there’s love for everyone out there. Even robotic snails. Thanks to Jeff Dobrow for the heads up.

Max Tyrie’s excellent Modest Mouse video competition submission

Slew of new postings just added to the Jobs page

Anthony Hurd

I can’t seem to get away from stop-motion. The latest from Anonymous Content’s PES for Pivot is full of his characteristic charm—a subtle playfulness that never upstages the message. My favorite moment is the collision of the two chairs to create a polka-dot love seat. According to the PR release for this one: “the effect was achieved by building full sized couches at different increments. Says PES, ‘It’s not everyday that you get to build an entire couch for 2 frames of animation.’”

Strokes - First Impressions of Earth

PetPunk’s recently updated spring reel is chop full of interesting work. The most evident aspect of it though is the obvious lack of color. This nontraditional approach to a showreel forces the viewer to be more aware of different things, like composition and pattern, instead of being drawn to popping colors. But does their decision to make the reel black and white work, or does it make the original work less interesting?

You decide.

On a side note, not sure if this is old news or not, but they seemed to have set up some streaming webcams up on their site, one actually giving us a view of the men at work. No picking your noses gentlemen, the world is watching.