Serenade In The Night is one of those songs from a bygone era that has with it all the romance of a winter's Sunday afternoon black and white movie and beautiful actresses with rich lipstick. It is also incredibly romantic. If you ignore the fact that many of the characters are either skeletons or clowns you'll find Nick Uff's animation exactly the same. Yesterday's comments about Nick apply to this movie too. 
Commencing with a violinist serenading underneath a window the movie progresses in irrepressible fashion and it's absolutely wonderful how the whole things moves along, effortlessly with the sort of details you want to replay. Richer in colour than yesterday's music videos, the degree of detail is breath-taking. You'll love the romantic swirl of the dancers in a variety of exotic locations and if you understand the plot that's a bonus. However it is about the life of the Belgian artist, James Ensor, amongst whose subjects were carnivals, masks and puppets, often grotesque and having a theatrical flavour. Little extra to say on the painter though I can tell you that the music and lyrics are by Cesare Bixio, Bixio Cherubini and Jimmy Kennedy. I'm afraid don't know the singer. Great combination of music and animation. The lyrics are as follows: "Serenade in the night/ ‘Neath a fair lady’s window, /Just the same serenade/That I tenderly played/On a night long ago./There were stars in the sky/And I sang ‘neath the roses, /But she gave not a sigh /That she’d ever be mine/And my love story closes./Oh! why must the south wind be brining it?/Oh! why must my heart keep on singing it?/Serenade in the night/From the past comes to haunt me,/When I hear that refrain,/Oh! my heart aches again/For the lost love of mine."
This is free-wheeling subject matter indeed. Nick has described to his local paper, the Bournemouth Echo, how he does do not story-board letting the thing grow in his consciousness, an extended doodle I suppose. This is exactly how the video progresses as the subject matter grows darker with figures falling towards the city where they will join the congested streets of skulls. His work is drawn by hand on 16mm film, frame by frame. He must work quickly indeed because nothing stays the same from one instant to the next and there is a lot of distinctive content in his work. The movement of images is hypnotic and blends with the equally distinctive music. We Carry On is drawn and animated in exactly the same fluid style, its subject matter perhaps darker in tone to suit the song. To a thunderous beat, a woman's theft and sneaky read of her sleeping partner's letter launches a warning of the dangers of depravity, featuring some dark creatures from a modern Hades and just enough licentiousness to keep things interesting. Nice to read that Nick is a professional gardener though I have a suspicion that after this work commissions will flood in and the plants may have to be watered from the heavens. Whatever, another of his movies tomorrow.
The man's guests are presented as greedy birds devouring everything they can peck at, including said insects. Eventually the whole thing degenerates into a nasty parable about the dangers of gluttony, as food is forced down gullets. Then one ponders the title and the whole sorry mess is rendered intelligible: “Battery”. At a time when shareholders in UK supermarket giant Tesco are being asked to vote on the rights and wrongs of eating cheaply reared, battery farmed chicken his placement of his graduation movie on YouTube is well timed indeed. The ticking clock signifies the incredibly short time the birds have to live before ending up on the table. Interesting and appropriate ending too. David's artistic ability and animation technique is exceptional. His pen never spares anything of the ugliness of the scene, events and distorted features of the creatures. We zoom in to get a closer look at things we would rather not see, and his unalloyed use of a cold blue and grey shade adds to the overall harrowing effect. Cheerful piece this. The movie will do well on the festival circuit though not to sell turkeys for Christmas. David's website is impressive though still in its infancy with some most interesting and accomplished work and, I guess, a desire to market his work as is shown in the image below for the DVD cover. I've added the label "Graduation Movie" as I have a few to post in the category in the next few weeks.
He's got the muscles to match the Hollywood giants though his balletic qualities are not up to the best. Why are you wearing the superhero outfit, asks the director, calling him sweetheart as all theatrical types are prone to. Named after his mum's cat, Looo is not the brightest, fluffs his lines a bit and fails to make an impression in the action man sequences. Not Pixar quality at all. Exit producer stage right. This is not homage to Pixar at all just Bruno Bozzetto at his satiric best. Looo is a very funny movie with the great man producing the screenplay and direction whilst Alvise Avati contributed the original character and directed the animation. The animation looks, as a matter of fact, quite up to the Pixar marque, and one of the characters from the studio seems to have strayed onto the set. More of the finest Italian vintage from http://www.bozzetto.com/.
Unbeknown to me my new found friend, well by email, Tobias Stretch, has been launched into the semi-finals of the Aniboom Radiohead contest, just after I had bemoaned the fact that Transmutation had failed to make the top ten. Rethink by the site and three "golden tickets" were introduced. And lo and behold Tobias is there. In his own words: "I shot this film by myself from 5/25 to 6/2, after a month of puppet building and a month of storyboards. Animation into the transcendent beauty of nature, this film is about our complex relationship with nature and each other which I believe is consistent with Radiohead's vision." Tobias replied to a post I made at the time and to say he was gracious in defeat is the least of it. Thus I am doubly glad he's in. Now to the video. It's in a partial condition but just revel in the light, airy and eccentric beauty of it all and ask yourself if you want to see the complete thing. Because it is made with the track in mind, Radiohead's music and voice soars into the heavens and with it the distinctive world of Tobias Stretch. We have a hang glider piloted by Glider Man and a cast of glittering characters. I wondered as I wrote my first post on his work about the plausibility of transforming the beautifully sketched characters of his storyboard into working models. Needless fears. A golden faced woman in white holds aloft a bird, wings outstretched, and Glider Man swoops into the camera's lens. Magical. I have not seen work like this and I do so hope Radiohead want to see their music fly. Like I have just done, Vote Here
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The first is very funny (the guy reminds me of UK comedian Harry Hill), the second has a sense of wonder about it though there is an undeniable hard edge too. Joel employs the same Flash-based 2D technique in both animations which simply zip along, Joel's wit and inventiveness keeping this particular fan engaged. We are transported to a different world, surfing the gulf stream accompanied by ghouls or drowning in a sea of flowing red hair. His drawing style, effortlessly animated - though I'm sure it only seems effortless - are caricatured cartoons sometimes in close-up, maybe silhouetted for variety's sake; then there are the set pieces: the stream of hair trailing down the street from the guy on his bicycle, the animals whisked up in a spiral of air into the heavens, or we view a hilly cemetery and bonfire, viewed from afar as a diminutive Stonehenge. Despite the frenetic pace of the thing and our enjoyment of the journey on bike and suftboard, we want to find out what's going to happen at the destination. In fact the denouement in both cases is pretty cool. The links above to the movies are to high quality versions for download though you can view the pair on YouTube - Enjoy the Ride & Gained the World. I did try and claim Joel for the UK but in fact he is a resident of Knoxville, Tennessee and: "I've lived here and freelanced for nearly 6 years after starting my career off in Seattle as an animation director." More of Joel's exceptional work later early next week. 
offering is a simply drawn piece from 1965 and made in one week. Shizuku (Drop) is a marvellous traditional cartoon in which the proverbial man adrift on a raft is tempted and thwarted by three drops of precious water suspended from the mast. It is not a major piece at all but the ingenious manner in which the best laid plans of man on raft go astray will make you laugh aloud. Reaching out to acquire drop number one with an oar, fighting a travelling and equally thirsty albatross to the death and being lost in a heat induced fever, the short is a minor classic of comic timing.
Feature films
