The Ramp
Let’s say you’re a German car manifacturer, and you need to launch your new car on the American market. What do you need? Well, a pair of wings, and a huge ramp!
It’s Rampenfest!
Alternate link: The Ramp.
Gollum and Smeagol sing Barry White
The ultimate mash-up…
Watch it. (Flash Video)
Prevent It ads
A series of Canadian public service announcements in which people have various fatal accidents that could have been prevented. What is really effective about these ads is that the accidents are incredibly short and violent, the kind to get a reaction out of everyone. The first one is especially troubling.
MGMT - Time To Pretend
On first viewing, I reveled in the absolute freedom of the cheesy graphics. On second viewing, I paid attention to the lyrics and that blew me away. The yearning of adventure and mythology is so well captured in both the music and video. This is a great video. One of the year’s best, no doubt.
A History of Evil
Seems good in provoking reactions.
Animated Documentary-Mockumentary about Evil in western civilization from Ancient Greece to present day.
Human Dog for Carpe Caviar
A year late but I couldn’t not post this. It is simply out of this world.
Terminus
Incredible graphics for this short that works on many levels. Is it about emotional baggage? ghosts? people? bullies?
Watch low quality at Youtube or high quality quicktime (200mb!)
Lodger - I Love Death
A story that moves at the speed of light.
Lodger is back for more twisted musical animation. See the entire life of a stick figure in under four minutes. From a very wrong conception, to sleeping in school to endless work-a-days, Lodger captures the futility (and repetition) of life and sets it to a rollicking good rock song.
I love those subways!
Watch it (at Atom films, you have to endure a quick commercial before the film)
Socalled - you are never alone
Cool concept: face becomes a playground of sorts.
We Will Fall Together
Spot-on politically. Animation by Gal Shkedi for a song by Streetlight Manifesto.
Skins
Hot, hot and yuck.
Andrew Sloat’s multi-channel & text experiments
Sloat seems to be making minor excursions into new video-language-land. People have done similar things but it is never been so elegant or in this combination (at least I can’t remember so).
Watch minor-transformation - change & 22ndamendment
M.I.A - “Jimmy”
M.I.A’s music has grown on me. I always found her interesting and cute. Her music was full of potential, I thought. But I think my senses needed a little training. Her second CD is a classic. “Paper Plane” is one of the strangest gems you will find. People are always disturbed at the gunshots but after a while, as it did with me, you get comfortable with it (which is disturbing in itself).
The “Jimmy” video seems like a half-attempt at parodying Bollywood movies. The other big inspiration is clearly the Thousand-Hand Bodhisattva video. Maybe the Sri Lankan beauty reads TickleBooth!
Gondry’s ad for Motorola
This ad ain’t cool, has no reason or rhyme, barely mentions the product, alludes to a service but it does have, most importantly, plenty of fun.
Patrick Daughters has been on a roll
I checked out some of Daughters’ earlier work and they seemed to follow the conservative music video path but his recent work seems to have broken out of that shell.
Feist - 1234: One of the year’s best videos. I love to see a group of people working together to make the single-take video work. And though there is a great graphics sleight of hand on either end of the video, the real fun is in the middle. (Posted Earlier)
Feist - My Man My Moon: I love how simple the dance moves are. How much fun it seems rather than the fancy dance moves in most videos, all those do is showcase the choreographer. Here, your shoulders start to move and groove with it. Ok Go was clearly an inspiration, substituting treadmills for escalators.
Interpol - No I In Threesome: More one-take goodness.
Liars - Plaster Casts Of Everything: Images are projected on faces to distort expressions. There is nothing disturbing in terms of action but that effect alone manages to keep the video creepy, much like a David Lynch film. I couldn’t help thinking of Lost Highway when watching this.
Others:
Bright Eyes - Four Winds
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