Midlands animation director Samantha Moore has made some beautiful films. Here is one that feels very experimental, but which shows the visual responses of some synaesthetics (people who experience one sense when another is stimulated e.g. colour when hearing sound). Not strictly a children’s animation… but it seems like something that all of us might find interesting on a purely sensory level!
Sam is currently making an animated documentary about synaesthesia called An Eyeful of Sound. There are more details on her website and film blog.
While trawling YouTube yesterday I came upon this tiny bit of animation. I love it. It’s so well done with the camera shake and the quality of the imps that you instantly believe in them. There’s something about the way they’re acted that reminds me of the Dark Crystal and other Henson classics.
Higher quality version and a clip from another short film Kelpie can be found on the Bustykelp website
You have to love the false sad start of Jamie and The Magic Torch. Then comes ‘The Who’ like guitar and ten minutes of psychedelic nonsense. Mister Boo. Truncheon eating Officer Gotcha. A dog called Wordsworth with a farm-country accent. Wonderful! Voiced and Written by Brian Trueman.
There’s something very Mighty Boosh about this episode, especially the ghost.
Something a little darker again here… Dog by BAFTA and Academy Award winning animator Suzie Templeton tells a story of a boy, grieving for his dead mother and seeking reassurance from his father. This is probably one you’d want to watch before showing to your kids in case it’s too dark!
And now for something wonderfully silly… Honkbarn! from Flash animator Todd Ramsay. Honkbarn! is a series of musical journeys through the world of the musical Honkers and the quite-loving Grunchers. The characters are beautifully drawn and the backgrounds have a wondeful hand created quality rather than a solid graphic look. The songs are also catchy little loops and more than a little bit bonkers. Enjoy four instalments below.
Here’s a rather haunting song from Parisian band Kwoon set to some impressive animation from a chap called Yannick Puig, a French animator living in Valencia, Spain. It features a young boy taking a strange, sometimes sad and yet wonderful trip to the moon.
Puig describes it like this: “A father speaks to his son. He explains how was his life on the moon. A place filled with flying snakes, fireflies and three tailed monkeys.A beautiful place, safe and far away from the human culture. A place for imagination, a place in which you’ll find the entrance only if you open your mind.”
This animation reminds me of the parlour game ‘consequences‘ which I used to play with my Grandma as a boy. It would involve passing bits of folded paper backwards and forwards answering a series of questions without knowing what was written by the other player. At the end you’d fold out the paper and read the composite story which often was bizarre, surreal and utterly hilarious.
Once Upon A Time by Joe Pelling has the same obtuse narrative accompanied by a charming hand-drawn animation style.
Posted by bangazee 
Posted by bangazee 
Posted by bangazee 