Category: Motion

  • Remembering Breakthrough Music Videos

    Except for that 3-year break MTV took off the Breakthrough Music Video category, they had continued giving away the prize — which had been given to the likes of Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry and Chris Cunningham — until 2010, when they officially removed the category.

    So I ask again, what happened to Breakthrough Music Videos?

    As a reminder, I put together a list with all the winners.

    [iframe width=”580″ height=”326″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PLE88395EDFAA954B7″ /]

    If I had been picking winners (from that past post), I chose:

    • 2006 – U2 for Window in the Skies [MV]
    • 2007 – Tom Waits for Come On Up to the House [MV]
    • 2008 – Bjork for Wanderlust [MV]

    For the other two years, you know I’m probably partial to SunnyHill [1], but I’ll go with Salyu’s Tadano Tomodachi [1] concept because it’s much more a production concept than a music video concept. For 2012, despite its serious hard-hitting concept [1], I would have to go with Graham Coxon’s What’ll It Take [MV] due to its imaginative execution using fan footage.

    So what are some of your favorite music videos?

  • The Wonders of 3D Printing

    It’s crazy how technology has developed in the past 20 years. The latest consumer craze? 3D printing, of course! It hasn’t only been featured on shows (with a special mention on The Big Bang Theory), but it’s been used in a broad variety of ways [1]. Miniatures of yourself [1], your face in chocolate [1], miniature of yourself in gummy [1], or candy [1].

    Its most striking use, because of its practicality, was how they used 3D Printing in the making of ParaNorman. Technically speaking, it was that usual “wow, why didn’t anyone else think of this before?” Printing the many faces needed to be able to animate your stop-motion movie. It gets the consistency so your animation doesn’t get blotches, and you get incredible detail (I LOVE THE LIGHT GOING THROUGH NORMAN’S EARS).

    The question that arises is- if they print the faces needed to animate, once they’ve done the movements in a CG environment. Is it stop-motion? Mixed media is more common than ever. There was a lot of special effects in ParaNorman, especially in its incredibly visual last arc, but the film is still considered stop-motion. So how much use of the computer do you need to have for it to not be stop-motion?

  • The Happy Trotting Elf!

    I’m in the mood for some Sally singing Susan, The Happy Trotting Elf~

    Though, moment starts exactly at 1:11

    I’m Susan the happy trotting elf! I trot and trot, and bounce and bounce, and smile a lot, and that’s what counts! I’m Susan the happy trotting smile a-lotting elf! I’m polite so just for clarity, when I’m cross I say “Apparently!”

  • Shane Koyczan’s To This Day by Giant Ant

    Vancouver-based motion graphic studio, Giant Ant, took part in the making of an animation collaborative effort centered on the poem titled To This Day by Shane Koyczan, who was in charge of the We Are More poem used for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics [1]. To This Day focuses on the lasting impact of bullying on its victims, and though it feels heavy-handed with a +6min of running time with a narrative of negative lows in contrast to Koyczan’s climbing monologue, it’s still a project worth checking out because of…

    it’s animation.

    Giant Ant (which includes work by Jorge Canedo Estrada [1]) asked animators and motion designers to come up with 20-sec sequences to go along to Koyczan’s spoken poem, developing a wonderful mismatch of styles within its narrative.

    You can check out more of the To This Day project on:

  • Edet Soft ‘Edet Paper World’

    I want this (Dutch???) toilet paper!

    The best toilet paper commercials we ever got in Peru were of Suave, featuring Luis Miguel’s hit song, Suave [MV] — that’s the only one that ever stuck in my subconscious anyway. That one, for the song, and there was another one of a little girl who wanted to go to the washroom at a mall or something, and she was only with her father. Obviously, he couldn’t go it to the ladies room, so she went in with her father staying by the door giving directions, where he spurts “ahora limpiate tu potito.” (now clean your tushy).

    We aren’t any remotely close to having this kind of toilet paper commercial.

  • Mayday – Masquerade (Male, Female, One Body)

    I just began listening (truly listen) to Mayday’s discography pre the Born to Love days, finishing off titles/pinyin/title translations, when I ran into this song titled Masquerade (Male, Female, One Body) from their 2003 album, Time Machine (時光機). The thing is, the title of the song is Ci Xiong Tong Ti (雌雄同體), which is the term used to refer to “hermaphrodites” (which, by the way, isn’t longer a term accepted for people, who are now referred to as “intersex”). Perplexed, thinking that Google Translate was giving me a wonky translation, I checked the dictionary to double check.

    On a quick google search, I found a pretty terrific (singable) translation of the song.

    Rather than you understand me—I’d rather be a mystery
    A puzzle you just cannot solve, of what’s false and real, it’ll play at your heartstrings
    I’ll play you, or play your opposite form; partake in this game of love that you’ve borne.

    via NoStarWords @ LJ + starriheavens

    My mind was melted. I mean, it’s not VERY often you get playful duality in music, playing on gender-role conventions and completely avoiding the titillation that seethes from… well, everywhere now.

    (more…)

  • TINY-G’s 90s Dancing

    I don’t want to say “POWERFUL!!!” because I will feel like the captioning person on Korean variety programs. However, I just stumbled upon this video of TINY-G doing the choreography of their debut [MV], which I liked more than the actual music video. For one, you can actually see what’s going on without much distractions, and you can appreciate that they’re bringing a lot of HMPH! to their dancing in the way that 90s pop music used to have women dancing in not-high-heels and stomping their feet looking that they’re dancing instead of seducing you.

    There’s still a long LONG way to go for TINY-G, and we still need to see if their management ever dares to push the girls for a super girly concept for a comeback single like they love to do in Korea — which, sadly, seems like a huge possibility from the few comments I’ve been able to read asking why these tiny girls need to wear such baggy clothing when they’re so minuscule. Apparently people have issues with baggy clothes. Is it not feminine enough?

    Would you rather see them stomping with high heels and minis, so they can eff up their kidneys… just so they can look feminine and show their slender bodies to you?

    Looking at TINY-G, it brings back memories of me rooting for Britney.

  • A Few Weeks in Peru by Cole Graham

    My friend is super excited to be coming [1], so he sent me this video he ran into.

    I did take a peek of the pizza in Cuzco I so want to have again. You know, it’s not very often I step on Cuzco.

    I’m uncertain of the track, though, Fado by Galinhazz, some people say it’s kind of Spanish… maybe a little bit Flamenco-ish? I thought Arab. Maybe having to do with the Moors in Spain?

  • Mavis Fan & 100% – The God of Wealth Has Arrived

    I think I was posting a Mavis Fan track on Weibo when I ended up finding Vegetarian Fish, a site that was put up for Mavis Fan’s project with her mother, Miss D.D. Mavis produced the self-titled album for her mother, and sang a version of Doris Day’s Everybody Loves a Lover [1] with a nice mother/daughter moment in their music video.

    It’s hard to come by official links when looking in English, so I’m ecstatic that Mavis uses the channel for uploads of her group Mavis Fan & 100%, even if it’s just to wish us all Happy Chinese New Year with a short track/clip of The God of Wealth Has Arrived (財神到, Cai Shen Dao). And the doodles of the video are pretty funny, especially the one featuring Tony Leung because Mavis and Tony were on The Silent War last year. xD

  • Japan Newspaper App for Kids

    The Tokyo Shimbun (東京新聞) has developed an application for children to help them read their newspaper — difficult kanjis and all — by translating kanji into easy to read hiragana and other augmented reality features enhanced with animation and stuff.

    I don’t think the Tokyo Shimbun realized that they’ve developed a tool for foreigners to read their newspaper. xD

    https://youtu.be/2ouW5W_tMbg