Reel of the Month Club (Dec. 2024): Coat of Arms
December 21, 2024
Real-life Canadian animation legend Cordell Barker – creator of Oscar-nominated shorts “The Cat Came Back” and “Strange Invaders” plus hundreds of commercials – takes on the “the difficult gateway between childhood and adolescence” in his latest opus “If I Was God…” [Watch]
I have very good news for all of you who ever had this conversation: “Dude! What if Encyclopedia Pictura made a video game with Kanye!” To which came the reply, “I’m so in. But PROMISE me I get to play as Kanye’s mom flying through the gates of heaven.” [Watch]
London design and motion studio Art&Graft take on the challenge of conveying a character’s emotions without the benefit of facial features in this 3D animated charmer for Costa Sunglasses thru agency McGarrah Jessee. [Watch]
There are only so many Dumb Ways to Die but infinite applications for cute animated characters singing a cheeky and hook-filled tune for an unglamorous product. Witness “Make a Nappy Happy” for Docusol (mini-enemas for pediatric constipation) from McCann Humancare in London with production by Kilogramme.
[Watch]
In the summer of 2014 Vancouver VFX veterans The Embassy released the spectacular “Ultimate Racetrack” for BMW Canada directed and edited in-house by Ozan Biron. Almost two years later the making-of video finally drops and the wait was worth it. [Watch]
The London five-piece rock’n’roll outfit known as Dead Pirates just dropped this retro-subversive (and not all-together SFW) video for “UGO” from their upcoming album HIGHMARE animated by their co-founder McBess, the French illustrator extraordinaire and one half of Passion directing duo McBess & Simon. [Watch]
Turin, Italy design and animation studio NERDO turns to audacious typography and bold, clean compositions in this set of three striking broadcast IDs designed to help La Effe stand out among the many offerings on SKY Italy. [Watch]
Fun and informative potty-mouthed short from Austin brand studio The Butler Bros with animation by Buck‘s LA studio for the Clif Bar Family Foundation maintains “our food system is f*cked, but we can fix it.” [Watch]
Veteran motion masters Lobo and US agency 22squared enlist giant robots and an intrepid young girl to announce the latest environmental initiative from Atlanta carpet giant Interface, Inc. in this sweeping and emotional two-minute animated opus. [Watch]
Snappy animation and wonderful character design from creative director Gareth O’Brien and the crew at Buck in Sydney for Australian brand Woolmark, showcasing how important sheep-shearing has been to human innovation throughout history. [Watch]
Running a successful design business for a decade and a half is beyond tough. Keeping your creative output intriguing and meaningful while you do it is a balancing act few studios master. Meanwhile in London, 15 years after their launch, branding and motion house DixonBaxi seem to be just getting underway. [Watch]
Join LUMBRE, the Buenos Aires animation and design studio for a look at how they conjured the zany energy of their branding campaign for Boing, the sister channel to Turner’s Cartoon Network and Boomerang currently on air in Italy, France, Spain and South Africa. [Watch]
Wonderful hand-rendered flow to this quasi-minimal, stream of consciousness music video from UK animators Anna Ginsburg and Gworge (aka George Wheeler) for South London rapper/actor Loyle Carner called “Stars and Shards.” [Watch]
Join director/CD Valere Amirault and the animation crew at Paris CG specialists Mécanique Générale on their trippy (but gorgeously rendered) jaunt into animated existentialism called “Symphony of Two Minds.” [Watch]
