Simon’s Cat in “Tongue Tied”

And We Were Young is an upcoming animated documentary by Andy Smetanka about American involvement in one of the final battles of World War I (trailer). The documentary will feature first person accounts of the costly Meuse-Argonne offensive of 1918, and will be animated with paper cutouts and silhouettes on 8mm film. Smetanka is raising funds for the project on Kickstarter.

Thanks to Richard for the tip.

French food artist and filmmaker Alexandre DUBOSC has created an amazing animated zoetrope cake inspired by Tim Burton. It is titled The Caketrope of BURTON’s Team and it incorporates elements from some of Burton’s films, including The Nightmare Before Christmas and Batman. You may remember DUBOSC created Alimation, another edible zoetrope animation. DUBOSC has posted a set of the film’s “making of” photos that are worth checking out.

via Colossal

photos by Alexandre DUBOSC

In this video clip posted by Fuu66 from a 1981 Super Friends episode called “The Stowaways from Space”, the Wonder Twins (Jayna and Zan) activate their powers in the shape of an octopus and in the form of an ice unicycle.

“Measuring the Universe” is a fascinating animation that explains some of the ingenious ways scientists measure the universe. It is part of the ongoing exhibition Measuring the Universe: from the transit of Venus to the edge of the cosmos, on display at the Royal Observatory Greenwich in the UK. The exhibition ends September 2, 2012.

via Geeks are Sexy

Nick De Spain created these hyper-realistic illustrations of Ren Hoek and Stimpy from The Ren and Stimpy Show.

via Ian Brooks

Happy Food, a wonderful new animated short by Yum Yum London, with audio by David Kamp.

This astonishing paper craft stop motion animation is set to the song “Østersøen” by the band Ödland. The animation was directed by Vincent Pianina & Lorenzo Papace.

via Colossal

In the 2010 animated short titled Studio Stories: The Movie Vanishes, we learn from Pixar’s Oren Jacob and Galyn Susman how a big chunk of Toy Story 2 movie files were nearly lost due to the accidental use of a Linux rm command (and a poor backup system). This short was included on the Toy Story 2 DVD extras.

Coincidentally, Oren Jacob was on my flight to SXSW where the flight attendants concocted recipes from galley food.

via Jamie & Adam Tested and Boing Boing

Under the Sea is a Sketchbook film about stop-motion animator Hayley Morris. The film, directed and edited by Danny Gregory and co-directed by Tommy Kane, captures her creative process as “she makes drawings and critters for her latest stop-motion animated film titled Bounce Bounce.” You may remember we posted Red Hook, another short film by Danny Gregory.

Some notes from the filmmaker about Morris and her process:

Despite her scratchy line, Hayley puts down each stroke with confidence and vigor. Her drawing seems to pulse and vibrate. She layers her watercolor quickly, wet-on-wet, creating more vibration and vitality. I like the ease and spontaneity of the way she makes art — you’d think a stop-motion animator would be enormously controlled in her work but Hayley leaves room for reaction and response as she makes her art. In an era of CGI and digital processes, her work harkens back to stop-motion puppeteers like the Jan Švankmajer and the Brothers Quay. It’s beautiful and emotional.

Here is Bounce Bounce, the stop-motion animation for the song “Bounce Bounce” by Hilary Hahn and Hauschka from their album Silfra:

“Because”, the latest by Cyriak Harris, is a video he made using his own face.

“The Eagleman Stag” by Mikey Please is a stunning stop motion animation about a time-obsessed entomologist who discovers a beetle that can cheat death. Please crafted his sets and characters from white foam material, giving the animation a curious monochromatic computer-generated appearance (making-of video). In reality, very little CGI was used in the production of the animation.

Please is now raising funds his next animation on Indiegogo.

via Short of the Week

“Where Things Come From” by German designer Hardy Seiler is an entertaining motion graphics commercial for an imagined educational show on curiosity and the origins of everyday things. Seiler created the animation as his bachelor project.

via Doobybrain.com

Peak Condition is a interview-style stop-motion short film by Los-Angeles based artist and animator Laura Jane Favela that is about “a delusional slice of toast and a naive but well-meaning raccoon.”

The maladjusted pair inhabit a universe in which Toast’s unusual ideas about reality reign supreme.

Delta Heavy has made a stop-motion animated music video for their dubstep dance song Get By which incorporates and butchers up some classic games. The song comes from the album titled Down The Rabbit Hole and is available for pre-order from Ram Records. The video was directed, produced and animated by Ian Robertson and co-produced by Andy Dow.

Production notes from the video:

11,008 photographs were taken for the film.

3,184 photographs made the final cut.

80 Rubik’s Cubes were hired for the shoot.

10 hours to animate 18 frames of the Rubik’s Cube equaliser.

148 Subbuteo men hired for the shoot.

99 Red Balloons by Nena is the vinyl record in the opening sequence.

7 Hungry Hippos were harmed during the making of the film.

160 pick-up sticks are equalised.

1 John Hunt Little Champion Pie Machine was used as the record press.

4 hours to shoot the hungry hippos being minced.

12 photographs per second appear in the film.

6 hours to plan and shoot the camera dolly in on the minced Subbuteo.

32 days were spent animating.

via Colossal

images via Ian Robertson

While visiting my friend Kimberly Cross recently, she introduced me to a delightful set of objects from her childhood, the Red Raven Magic Mirror and its accompanying 78 RPM movie records. Here’s how it all works: put a movie record on the turntable, place the Magic Mirror carousel-like device on the spindle, the record spins, familiar children’s music plays and a tiny animated movie reflects in the Magic Mirror. Though the animation is in a short loop, it was really fun (and a bit mesmerizing) to watch. This variation of a praxinoscope (a zoetrope successor) was developed by Morgan Development Laboratories from the mid-1950s to the early 1960s. They released only 16 movie records in total.

photos and video by Rusty Blazenhoff

“The Expanding Airport” by Charles and Ray Eames is a 1958 educational animation about the novel design of Washington Dulles International Airport, the country’s first airport designed to accommodate jet aircraft. The film coincided with the beginning of the airport’s construction—the airport would go on to open in 1962.

via Cartoon Brew

The Camera Collection is an animation by Antonio Vicentini featuring pixelated camera gear illustrations by Billy Brown.

via Have you seen this?!

This animation by Globaïa shows the incredibly numerous road networks, shipping lanes, and flight paths that encircle Earth. The animation is part of the Welcome to the Anthropocene project, an educational web portal focused on humanity’s increasing impact on Earth. There’s also a narrated version of the animation which provides some historical context.

via Gizmodo

School of the Visual Arts third year traditional animation student Dana Terrace created Kickball!, a sweet animated short with music by Jeff Liu and voice work by Yotam Perel.

via Cartoon Brew

In this music video for “I Will Never Change” by London-based electronic musician Benga, 960 records are stop motion animated to create a waveform for the song. The animation was created by London-based studio Us.

via Fubiz

The Disney Food Blog’s guest author Melissa M. recently visited and photographed the famous breakfast cereal bar at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, California. She also posted Pixar’s Cereal Bar, the short animated film about the cereal room that was included as an extra feature on the Toy Story 3 DVD.

The room is filled with a variety of cereals from Captain Crunch to Muesli and from Frosted Flakes to Granola. In addition to the many options of cereal, there was coffee, lots of milk, and baskets of fruit!

According to Pixar employees, this room is well-used and well-loved! They eat cereal everywhere — from the screening room to the meeting room — and even at their desks!

photo by Melissa M.

via The Disney Food Blog

“Childhood of a Circle” is a beautifully retro animation about a creature named Archibald and a mysterious red circle. The animation was created by French designer Kadavre Exquis.

via Geeks Are Sexy

Color Reel is an animated short by Evan Seitz that quizzes your knowledge of colors in film. Seitz also created 123Films and ABCinema.

Artist Bill Plympton animated the “couch gag” opening sequence for the April 15, 2012 episode of The Simpsons. The episode was titled “Beware My Cheating Bart”.