Reel of the Month Club (Dec. 2024): Coat of Arms
December 21, 2024
Spectacular self-initiated title sequence (with credit names borrowed from Ghost in the Shell characters) crafted by Beijing visual designer Zaoeyo (aka Xiaolin Zeng, aka Mike Zeng), a mesmerizing one-man tour de force of thoughtful details and shimmering refraction.
[Watch]
Director Shinsuke Jitsumori aims straight at the mysterious tastes of the domestic Japanese market with this super-campy retelling of Aesop’s fable “The North Wind and the Sun” for Kirin thru Dentsu.
[Watch]
If you’re having a rough day or just feeling very alone on the planet for whatever reason, take six minutes now and watch “Fired on Mars.” [Watch]
Stuttgart-based Axis director Abed Abonamous sets the tone for the latest release of Relic’s real-time strategy game Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War with a literal rain death before launching a brutal and atmospheric parade of fantasy/scifi characters locked in spectacular combat. [Watch]
Wonderful mixed-media stop motion character animation from Manchester director/animator Steve Boot called “Once Upon a Blue Moon,” and a fave on the international film fest circuit. [Watch]
M ss ng P eces director Ray Tintori and the MPC crew make the creative potential of VR visceral and personal in this spot for Google’s Tilt Brush, a powerful and affordable app that allows you to design/sketch/paint/sculpt in 3D space. [Watch]
Six years in the making, Stefan Sagmeister’s feature documentary “The Happy Film” finds the NYC graphic celebrity on a quest to answer the question “How does one become happy?” by turning himself into a design project. [Watch]
Bristol designer/director Chris Hopewell returns to directing with this spooky stop-motion folktale with a terrible twist for Radiohead’s “Burn the Witch,” recalling the style of vintage UK kid’s shows like The Trumptonshire Trilogy. [Watch]
The wisdom and insight of American naturalist Eustace Conway comes to vivid life in this fluid mix of 2D and cel animation for History’s “Mountain Men” show crafted by LA motion and production studio Roger. [Watch]
Buck‘s Sydney and US animation crews team up to combine two chocolatey snacks, hyper-active emoji’s and an infectious pop song to make this 80-second Australian adventure for Cadbury’s new Dairy Milk with Oreo bar eminently watchable. [Watch]
Ten artists, three months, 340 white shirts and 2,576 stain-painted frames later, Aardman and Kode Media prove “Dirt Is Good” for Persil laundry detergent in this painstaking stop-motion film thru Ogilvy & Mather, UK. [Watch]
Check this impossible-to-ignore animated spot from Moscow motion house Loop and Mexican character designer El Grand Camacho for the massive Garorock music fest taking over rural Marmande in south-western France this summer.
[Watch]
Powered by first person accounts of time spent in solitary confinement, the haunting and claustrophobic nine-minute VR experience called “6×9” produced by The Mill for UK newspaper The Guardian gives viewers the chance to simulate what 100,000 people in US prisons endure for 23 hours every day. [Watch]
The bumper crop of student films from the 2016 CalArts Character Animation program includes “You Look Scary” by Xiya Lan and “Desert Critters” by Li Wen Toh – both demonstrate outstanding storytelling talents while using fully divergent styles, techniques and narrative structures. [Watch]
