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3: Contemporary Animation Inspiration - related posts In Process Inspiration: global animation cultures

Global inspiration: Western Europe and North America

Rough collection of animations from You Tube and recommendations I found interesting for my work on wordless animation. Unfortunately some are no longer at their 2020 URL.

http://www.edgeofframe.co.uk/

·        https://www.sakugabooru.com/ – for animation inspiration (eastern)

·        https://livlily.blogspot.com/ – for animation inspiration (western)

Oona Grimes, murd : pagina quattro, 2020, Courtesy of the artist and Danielle Arnaud gallery, London. 2.28 mins
Fellini’s La Strada [1954] mis-remembered and re-invented… Rapid fire images and action notations create unplanned collisions… Flashes of accidental animation. Gelsomina is a naif from the margins who has fallen through the cracks. She retains her innocence despite being sold to the brutal travelling performer, Zampano. Her drum playing gives her a job and a voice, a starring role loved by children and therefore a means of survival in the ruins of post-war Italy.
https://www.tintypegallery.com/exhibitions/unstilled-life-artist-animations-1980-2020/
Edwina Ashton, Mr Panz at Lake Leman, 2010, Courtesy the artist and Tintype, London, and with thanks to Animate Projects and to Drawing Room, London. 6 mins
Edwina Ashton’s hand-drawn, animated films hinge on the mismatch between our intentions and reality, offering narratives that draw on painful observations of everyday behaviour and individual foibles. The film follows the daily habits and explores the memories of Mr Panz, a removed, particular gentleman elephant living in a hotel on Lake Geneva. His diffidence is matched by the sensitive, almost hesitant style of Ashton’s animated drawings, which include a remarkably economical differentiation of an elephant and a mole.
https://www.tintypegallery.com/exhibitions/unstilled-life-artist-animations-1980-2020/
Markus Vater, Worlds Don’t Come Easy, 2020, Courtesy of the artist. 10 minutes
A tear finds happiness in the first of these short film vignettes packed into ten minutes: a mountain top rescue has an unexpected outcome; a chameleon gets confused matching its own reflection; God loses an eye; dandelion fairies commit mass suicide; a gun barrel proves a sub-optimal choice of home… There’s a dark twist to many of these tales, belied by the jaunty and diverse range of accompanying music, candy colour combinations and absurd humour. Markus Vater recently gave a talk entitled ‘Things that are there because they are not there, like a shadow, or death…’

Documentary narrative

Jonathan Hodgson

Commentary on life and narratives about mental illness, sexuality, cruelty and politics. Some of the animations are driven by voice-over narrative. But his very simple evocative style is carefully adapted to subject matter and uses drawing styles and animation techniques that I could experiment with in my own work.

See more on vimeo: https://vimeo.com/jonathanhodgson/videos

Dogs (1981) A man takes his dog for a walk in the park where they encounter other dogs and their owners. The film explores the relationship between a man and his dog highlighting their contrasting approaches to life. Worldess animation, originally 6mm film.
Menagerie (1984) is a wordless animation about the experience of the animals in living in captivity in London Zoo. The film was used by the charity Zoocheck  zoocheck.com/ to help promote their campaign for the protection of wild animals. The film was animated with pencil on paper and frosted cel and shot on 16mm film.
An example of his psychological narratives. The animation is driven by the voice narrative. But the evocative painterly style is something I could experiment with. A gang of kids find a strange house with an overgrown garden where they play. Only once do they meet the man who lives there, a dead-beat alcoholic with a free and easy spirit who welcomes them. The children see him as a romantic character in stark contrast to their neurotically house proud parents.
End of the Death Penalty 2012 spearheading Amnesty International’s campaign. Simple monochrome style with voiceover narrative about one Iranian lawyer’s fight to save juveniles from execution. Uses a combination of still backgrounds and moving figures, ending in photographs of actual people and events.

Surreal narrative

Peter Millard

See movies on: https://vimeo.com/petermillard

Produces short surreal animations in a child-like style with simple line and crayon/wash. Many of his animations depend on use of sound effects and have no words.

David Shrigley

British illustrator who has some of his comic narratives converted into animation. Although he relies a lot on voice narrative, his very direct and simplified cartoon style could be replicated in iPad animation.

http://davidshrigley.com/category/drawing-painting/

https://www.britishcouncil.org/arts/shrigley/animations

Steve Cutts

Humorous animation about the history of ‘Man’ in the world. Complex Flash animation.

Patrick
Amusing animation about tyranny and conformity. Quite complex Flash animation.

3D animation but basic idea could be translated into simple 2D style.

Filmbilder

Baker Mark
Ross Bollinger

Pencilmation simple humorous Flash animation.

See You Tube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/rossbollinger

Miscellaneous

From Google search on 2D and/or Flash animation

Visual abstraction

Oskar Fishinger

Oskar Wilhelm Fischinger (22 June 1900 – 31 January 1967) was a German-American abstract animator, filmmaker, and painter, notable for creating abstract musical animation many decades before the appearance of computer graphics and music videos. He created special effects for Fritz Lang’s 1929 Woman in the Moon, one of the first sci-fi rocket movies, and influenced Disney’s Fantasia. He made over 50 short films and painted around 800 canvases, many of which are in museums, galleries, and collections worldwide. Among his film works is Motion Painting No. 1 (1947).

Ian Gouldstone

Experimental conceptual animations using a range of techniques.

https://iangouldstone.com/

Two forms, a red ball and a yellow stick, rest in the silent darkness, then hover and morph with sound effects. Can I replicate this through a blended foreground in procreate to give atmosphere? Certainly later in Adobe Animate.
Use of front mask to contain and emphasise the motion. This could be done as a foreground in Procreate or added later in Adobe Animate.
Experimental film

Websites:

See also scratch video
  • Death Valley Days: Secret Love by Gorilla Tapes 1984 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDQM_UJ0Tm0
  • Absence of Satan, George Barber, 1985 http://www.georgebarber.net/video_pages/satan.htm Comply, Emergency Broadcast Network, 1993 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhZ_ UygGnN0
  • Martin Arnold Passage à l’acte (1993) http://dangerousminds.net/comments/watch_a_mind_bending_video_manipulation_of_to_ kill_a_mockingbird
  • A diary/travelogue film shot on super 16mm with differing frame rate transfers overlaid upon one another. – https://vimeo.com/229481476
Parada, Jerzy Kucia, 1986

http://ubu.com/film/kucia_parada.html

A very evocative Polish black and white film animation about Harvest.

Uses variations in abstract framing, focus and timing to evoke memories and reflections.

Film grain, light and shadow plays evokes the time that has passed. Subtle monochrome colour shifts and selective colouring eg shirts of harvesters as the main things remembered.

Dreamlike reflections are produced through eg drawn/overlaid animation of birds.

Music and sound effects re-inforce the feelings of dreamy nostalgia, noise or threat.

Con Leche, Jordan Wolson, 2009

http://ubu.com/film/wolfson_leche.html

Animated cartoon of Diet Coke bottles filled up with milk. Shot on video in Detroit Michigan, the characters walk through the desolate streets in real video sometimes in groups and sometimes alone. The image wobbles, flips and turns inside of the video frame. 

A commercial voice over actress speaks from texts collected from the internet referencing identity, technology, memory and mortality most of which are personal accounts spoken in first person. Every few minutes Jordan Wolfson interrupts her giving basic formal instructions and adjustments distorting her tone, volume, and “sex”.

Wimshurst selection
Confusion Through Sand
Kairos Trailer by Studio La Cache
Film de Cube – Ecole la Poudrière
Good Books Metamorphosis
Delta Sleep – Afterimage music Video
Whooosh
Wednesday with Goddard
ROXY x Masanobu
Zed: Death Mark by Ryan Woodward
EAUX FORTES
Split
Strong

Snowman wordless.

website: http://www.edwardmonkton.com

Google images

Pig of Happiness

Love Monkey

The Lady and the Chocolate

Work with the Samaritans

Cloud of Loveliness

Beautiful thoughts

The Coffee of Joy

Let Us Be Lovely

Sheep of Destiny

See also Lucas Ragazoni