In my latest hiatus several animations / music vids / motion graphics pieces have accumulated in my craw. Without further ado …

Australian artist Paul Robertson made this outrageous animation (drawn GIF-style — i.e., frame by frame – in ImageReady over the course of several, no doubt carpal-tunnel stricken, months) evocatively titled ‘Pirate Baby’s Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006,’ in the spirit of the old school horizontal fighting scrollers such as Double Dragon or Bad Dudes. Though things in Double Dragon nor Bad Dudes certainly never got this hectic …

Watch the video here.

[via BoingBoing]

Better in concept than upon execution perhaps, but still impressive. Lorenzo Fonda (an Italian animator with a seriously irritating portfolio site) attached static frames to dominos, and tracked them as they fell, forming the animation. Well, that was the idea anyway.

Watch the video here.

[via Motionographer]

I came across a link to the Swedish motion graphics house Pistachios a little while ago. Some freshness surely is to be found; take a look here.

The smart and ballsy British director Michael Winterbottom (who directed 24 Hour Party People, Code 46, and the art-porn dealio 9 Songs) directed this video for the Boards of Canada track ‘Davyan Cowboy.’ There is no Maya / After Effects / Flame pyrotechnics here; Winterbottom goes for the timeless and the sublime through the splicing-together of old film stock. In the first half we watch a aerial dive from a hot air balloon that looks like it’s floating somewhere in the upper stratosphere; and we end up surfing in the azure Jaws of an endless North Shore summer … 

Grok the video here.

[thanks Mira!]

UPDATE: Thanks to the latest issue RES (July/August 2006, Vol.9, No.4), I now know that this video was put together by Melissa Olson, not Winterbottom. Terribly sorry about the mix up …

LA motion graphics house Bl:nd directed this music video for Gnarls Barkley, aka the recent collaboration between R&B guy Cee-Lo and rising producer Dangermouse (of Grey Album and The Mouse and the Mask fame).

The song is called ‘Crazy.’ Accordingly, Bl:nd conjures hallucinatory formations out of Rorschach inkblots over the course of the track, often in brilliantly unexpected ways. The idea is strong, and the fluidity of the animation / compositing work is unbelievable. The video nails it on so many levels. The track, too, is buttah …

Watch the video here.

[via Coolhunting]

This was a high resolution motion series of bumpers that Psyop created for MTV’s new HD music video station. A discussion of the creative and production process, as well as hi-res stills from the video, in this article in Dexigner. 

View the video here.

Diesel’s new Spring/Summer 2006 campaign, made by Barcelona shop Vasava, breaks all aesthetic restraint and goes for broke. While one might better appreciate the rigor that Psyop and Bl:nd employ above, it is still easy on the eyes.

View the piece here.

[via Motionographer]