Reel of the Month Club (Dec. 2024): Coat of Arms
December 21, 2024
Inspired by a true story, Barcelona motion studio 23lunes undertake their first remote project and deliver a heartwarming glimpse at the inner life of an aging musician and his balcony performances during quarantine. [Watch]
Back in April 2020, motion designer and illustrator Yuval Haker responded to the World Health Organization’s open call to creatives to raise COVID-19 awareness with this animation that shows the spread of infection “as one big connected system.” [Watch]
Nicolas Lichtle, co-founder at studio Mada Mada in Paris just sent us this gentle and personal work he describes as “a moment of introspection staged through small moments imbued with poetry, absurdity, and surrealism.” [Watch]
Director Lisha Tan and her crew at The Mill team with the character animators at Titmouse for Dua Lipa’s “Hallucinate”, a wide-eyed psychedelic confection channeling a 1930s style and completed remotely in lockdown. [Watch]
Director Pete Candeland, a crucial part of the Gorillaz’ pop success, works his magic on another virtual band with this anime-flavored music video for “Highlight” by the Chinese animated ensemble RiCH BOOM. [Watch]
Making mattresses out of plastic bottles pulled from the ocean is an idea we can all get behind, and Trizz studio in Barcelona did just that with this spot for Beautyrest’s Harmony Lux line made with Seaqual™ fabric. [Watch]
French bottled water brand Vittel celebrates the natural diversity of their mountainous source region of Vosges with a set of three full CG spots by Mikros MPC in Paris starring a boxing bee, a dunking squirrel, and breakdancing ladybug. [Watch]
In his ambitious new passion project, Uruguay-based Brazilian director/animator Chico Jofilsan employs multiple techniques to tackle one of the central dilemmas facing all creatives, “How to choose one idea from among so many?” [Watch]
If you’re feeling like London studio Optical Arts is suddenly everywhere it’s because they’ve released four remarkable short films in the last two months, including this one, where an art exhibition triggers a woman’s imagination. [Watch]
Wonderfully minimal and melancholy vignettes by London director/animator Calum Macdiarmid provide a perfect compliment for a poem by Todd Boss reflecting on quarantine and the social trigger of George Floyd’s death. [Watch]
Recircle studio in Zagreb, Croatia, shifts away from their usual focus on animated content for kids to craft this beautifully illustrated synopsis of Frank Herbert’s landmark 1965 sci-fi novel “Dune” for TED-Ed. [Watch]
UK director/animator Cyriak brings all his mastery of subversive weirdness to this music video for “The Existential Threat”, a track off the newest album from venerable American pop innovators Sparks. [Watch]
For his third deadmau5 music video, Toronto director/animator Nick DenBoer slathers his talent for CG comedy all over an epic chunk of intergalactic nonsense featuring The Neptunes (aka Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo). [Watch]
Back in late 2019 when Sydney motion designer and illustrator Ben Marriot invited an international crew of animators to rally around the theme of Love, he could not have known just how much the world would need such a film in 2020. [Watch]
