Meet Sofia, a 3D amalgam of 500 actual children trapped in crisis situations all over the planet, their faces merged into a scared and vulnerable young girl created for UNICEF Sweden by Stockholm agency Edelman Deportivo and Swedish VFX facility Pixel Grinder. [Watch]
The 15th edition of the venerable FITC Toronto creative technology event opened April 17 with this title sequence by Vancouver’s Giant Ant. Leveraging the conference theme “Level Up,” the 2D, 3D, and cel-animated romp traces a fun revisionist history of video games packed with sly nods and clever transitions. [Watch]
Populated by impossibly cute and enigmatic characters, this frenetic promotional animation called “Zoning Tokyo” for Arts Council Tokyo was directed by Takashi Ohashi with character design and animation by Japanese manga artist and illustrator error403. [Watch]
How would you visualize a track from a band who calls their music “Live n’ kickin’ American folk-country music in Hebrew.” I have no idea either, but Uri Lotan and Yoav Shtibelman in Tel Aviv decided to transport the audience to a forgotten penny arcade where a wooden doll is stuck in place and time. [Watch]
While buying gear at the auction for a bankrupt studio, animator, educator and film archivist Steve Stanchfield over at Cartoon Research spotted a VHS case labelled “Pixar Marketing Tape.” Prepare yourself. [Watch]
Inspired by an opossum living in a coffin amongst his landlord’s old halloween props, Los Angeles director/animator Justin Hilden began filling his sketchbook with possums and possum gags, “Mostly I was intrigued by their strange avoidance of trouble, a trick not unlike my own reaction to stress.” [Watch]
