Channel Frederator Blog

Earlier this month, I blogged about Alex Budovsky’s music video for “Last Time at Clerkenwell” by The Real Tuesday Weld. At the time, I didn’t realize that Stephen Coates (the guy behind TRTW) was such a heavy duty fan of animation. The music video above is “The Show Must Go On” which was made by the small Brooklyn animation house Giant Squid Eye Productions. Giant Squid Eye is George Fort (director) and Monica Smith (producer). (Recently, George worked on backgrounds for over-the-top action fest Superjail—coming to Adult Swim this fall. And Monica was color key designer for Supernormal on CITV. A super coincidence?)

Of interest to animation history buffs is the new score Coates composed for Winsor McCay’s The Centaurs. The Centaurs was an unfinished animated film that only survives in fragments. McCay worked on it between 1918 and 1921. Most of the completed footage deteriorated due to poor storage. I think it’s really, really [Read more…]

Simple. Clever. Succinct. That’s how I would describe this Post-It animation. But who’s behind it? Turns out it’s an Argentinian motion graphics company called Gazz. It’s worth it to explore their website, as only a few examples of their work show up on YouTube. You can check out a stop-motion town full of egg-cars and a smoking belly face ID for MTV, among other fanciful things.

Also, don’t miss the videos in the section called “zzzaping”, which compiles tests and demos. One project is a motion-capture kit comprising two marachas and a belt, which can harness your rhythmic chops and sexy hip action to make an animated monkey dance.

Here’s a lovely music video they did for the song “Marta Ý Nestor” by Robot Bajo El Agua. I really love the song, although I don’t speak Spanish and don’t know what exactly they are singing about— I suppose love?

For the band: the [Read more…]

I’m not a big ol’ techno freak, but Gangpol & Mit just may suck me into the scene with the way they blend animation and music to create a mutant vibe that’s been described as the soundtrack to day care on another planet. Two guys from Bordeaux, France, Sylvain Quément (music) and Guillaume Castagné (graphic design), output a klutzy kool music/video universe that is childlike and threatening at the same time. My brain hurts in a good way!

Hitspaper interviewed them (and the awkward translation from Japanese just makes it even better!)

For more stimulation, transport yourself to their website. Guillaume’s art is showcased at his own site, here. They also have a MySpace page.

Guillame contributes to a more toned-down (no knives!) project for kids called Carton Park with Norman Bambi & Mami Chan of Juicy Panic. See a somewhat Devo-esque performance, complete with alterna-scout uniforms and limboing children, here.

—Anne D. Bernstein

Floyd’s recent post on the fredblogs reminded me of a great video of Daniel Johnston’s Monster Inside Of Me by Eric Fensler, of GI Joe PSA fame.

Here’s some fanart I created for Daniel a few years ago. 

-Jeaux Janovsky

This is the original pilot for Molly, Star Racer, which later became Oban, Star-Racers.

Years ago, I met Savin Yeatman-Eiffel at MTV Animation, when he was pitching an animated show called Squat. We kept in touch for a while and I even got to tour his studio, Sav The World!, when I was visiting Paris. A few years later, the entire studio picked up and moved to Japan to make Oban. For a while, you could watch it on ABC Family/Jetix in the US, and later, Toon Disney. Now the complete series is finally available on DVD.

For fans of anime-inspired kids’ shows, this French/Japanese co-production is far superior to most in character design, animation, imagination, and plot.

More on the jump, so jump!
[Read more…]

Click on the Image to watch the episode!

Channel Frederator Awards Announce Winners
First Network to Celebrate the Internet Where It Belongs - Online!

NEW YORK, NY - June 10, 2008 -

Channel Frederator, the largest Internet cartoon network in the world and one of the founding networks of Next New Networks, today announced the winners of the Channel Frederator Awards, recognizing extraordinary talents in animation and the internet. The Second Annual Channel Frederator Awards is available to watch online today at http://www.channelfrederatorawards.com/.

Winners were announced in all seventeen Freddies categories that range from “Sick Sick Sick Award” to “Best Flash Film.” Channel Frederator’s prestigious Vanguard Award, went to Dan Meth, a New York-based independent animator.
[Read more…]

I was excited when Willy Hartland, a colleague from my MTV Animation days, snagged an “Excellence in Humor” award at this year’s ASIFA-East Animation Festival. He won for his work on “Pick It Up”, a ska-inspired music video commissioned by Yo Gabba Gabba (the colorful and crazily cool pre-school show which airs on Nick Jr. and is produced by Wild Brain.) The uber-bouncy music features Alex Desert from the ska/rocksteady band Hepcat.  The song was recorded by gogo13.

It’s the most entertainingly educational music video about neatness ever!

To watch: Use this link to a Flash version or this one to a Quicktime version.

Some inside scoop: Originally, the spot was going to be done in claymation. Here is a 3-D version of the father that wasn’t used. (It was decided that Flash was a better option for many reasons, budget being one of them.)

[Read more…]

Have a look at this video. It’s got the Jefferson Airplane song White Rabbit, mixed with visuals from Disney’s “Alice in Wonderland”.  The results are great, with each part making the other stronger.

-Floyd Bishop 

I’ve fixed the post. As Joey pointed out in the comments, it was Jefferson Airplane, NOT Jefferson Starship.

Not all fan videos are created equal. Youtube has no shortage of bad videos of animated content set to random songs. This video from YouTube user Poopydough is one of the good ones though. He combined the Cake cover of the Black Sabbath song “War Pigs”, with visuals from the Cartoon Network series “Clone Wars”. He matched up key lyrics with visuals that correspond, and the results are pretty nice.

I still prefer the way Black Sabbath does the song though.

-Floyd Bishop