Harry Partridge, creator of the pitch-perfect parody “Saturday Morning Watchman” (up to 1,932,841 views on YouTube, as of this moment!) has posted his new reel. Harry is still in college and surely has quite a career ahead of him. He not only writes and animates his shorts; he also records all the voices solo and scores his own music.
The main Harry Partridge YouTube page is here. And his website is here.
Check out “Saturday Morning Watchman”, if you haven’t seen it. Or watch it again. Let’s push this puppy up past TWO MILLION VIEWS!
I’m a big fan of the music of Jonathan Coulton, a musician who actually encourages people to make their own video versions of his songs. (For example, there was this contest to create a video for “I Feel Fantastic”.)
A guy who goes by the name Spiff has created a slew of these videos using World of Warcraft. His Machinima videos (that’s animation made using video games) are very entertaining. He also has a page on his site with detailed explanations of how to make them—featuring two methods: easy and hard.
This classic Jib Jab Passover short is an oldie but goodie. The rapper is Eric Schwartz, aka Smooth-E. In this interview, he shares the origin story of his viral video.
If we had just one, it would have been enough. But here are few more tributes to the thin stuff:
“Matzoh Man” from American Comedy Network:
“20 Things to Do With Matzoh” by Michelle Citrin and William Levin is live action, but just so great that I wanted to share it. Plus, the girl can sing!
It’s that time again! Time to announce our March Cartoon of the Month. We had a really great variety of films that were contenders this month - bears, cars, ghosts, goldfish, narwhals, cupcakes and more. Honestly, though, in the end we all know that cupcakes RULE! So it’s really no surprise that Kirsten Lepore is taking home the totally sweet $100 prize-pack of exclusive Cartoon of the Month Channel Frederator merchandise for her film, Sweet Dreams.
Kirsten was Channel Frederator’s first featured filmmaker in episode #166. Our very own Bailee DesRocher did an awesome two part interview with Kirsten where she tells all about this great film. Make sure you check it out here, and here.
I also asked Kirsten what kind of advice she has for any of you creative filmmakers out there that want to win the Cartoon of the Month prize yourself. She says:
A poetry enthusiast named Jim Clark has created dozens of short videos using Clutch Cargo-like animation techniques to imagine what it would be like if famous poets could recite their work for us. The results are odd and somewhat creepy. Above, Lewis Carroll reads an excerpt from “Jabberwocky”. Other literary figures given the not-entirely-lifelike treatment are Emily Dickinson, Shakespeare, Charles Baudelaire, and Oscar Wilde. See the entire collection here.
There are lots of other adaptations of “Jabberwocky” that you can view on YouTube. Here is one narrated in Swedish, containing some marvelous stop motion puppet creatures. To learn more about animator Chuck Svensson, see The Lone Animator website, his behind-the-scenes blog, and the bluworm YouTube page.
Check it out! Our sister-network, Indy Mogul featured some awesome stop motion animation films in a special episode of “The Best Short Films in the World” today. While you’ll see our very own Dan Meth’s Watermelon Nights, the rest of these animations are exclusive to The Best Sort Films in the World. So get a preview here, but hightail it over to their site to see the shorts in the entirety! - Carrie
I was bopping around the website for The Festival International de la Bande Dessinée d’Angouleme (more about that later in the week) and discovered the work of French illustrator Anouk Ricard. Amusingly awkward and extremely charming, the style is perfect for animation. (As you can see above, in a stop motion adaptation of her book Anna et Froga.)
She also contributed to a series of shorts called Avez-Vous Déjà Vu?, created by French comic Alain Chabat. Who, by the way, dubbed the voice of Mike Meyer’s voice in all three Shrek movies.
Alexander Blue recently created a series of characters and illustrations that were turned into animation for a corporate Coca Cola event in Buenos Aires. The artwork was commissioned by the South American ad agency Gazz. The illustrations were then animated by the agency’s design team into a final 2-minute short called “Vivir Postitivamente” (Live Positively). Eventually, the animation should pop up on the Coca Cola Argentina website, but for now you can view it at the Magnet Reps site on this page.
If you crave an antidote to the sappier side of the Holiday Season, you can find a daily dose of grotesque greeetings over at the Creepy Christmas site. Beck Underwood heads this online project which will release one new short film every day up until Christmas. The series launched December 1st with Electrifying Holiday Spirit by illustrator David Goldin. Read about how he made this film over at his Drawger blog.
It’s all very low-budget and home-spun (yet high quality!) and I will definitely be checking in each AM to see what daily disturbances are unwrapped.
A full list of the filmmakers can be found at the Glass Eye Pix site. Upcoming creators include Voltaire, Peter Sis, and Mary Haron. (Glass Eye Pix is a production company run by Beck’s husband Larry Fessenden. They are a super creative couple and Beck was the publisher of a great kids magazine from the late 90s called ZuZu. They [Read more…]
Aside from family, friends, and all that kind of stuff, I’m most thankful for cartoons. What better way to celebrate Thanksgiving, than with a fresh new cartoon from Mukpuddy? The boys from down under and over to the right have just released Terry the Bi, Bi-Polar, Polar Bear?
Hopefully we’ll be seeing more of Terry in the future.
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