Kseniya Simonova, Ukraine’s Got Talent winner from 2009 constructs complex narratives through the usage of sand painting and synced musical scores.
Archive for the ‘ANIMATION’ Category
Kseniya Simonova’s sand animation
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 by CrapThe Upcoming Cleveland Show
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 by Crapvia THRFeed. A few clips for the upcoming Cleveland Show, a spinoff of Family Guy. Embedded above is the first clip with two more available in addition to a longer extended formal trailer. For the most part, it looks to be in line with Seth McFarlane’s other works in its taste for humor, random musical numbers, and absurd satire bordering on inappropriateness. I can’t imagine the world needs three back-to-back Mcfarlane animations Sunday night, but this may not prove to be a bad thing. While American Dad is extremely inferior to Family Guy, it still provides a nice complementary spot and is favorable to either The Simpsons, or the now cancelled, King of the Hill.
Rest of the Clips at the link below:
First look: Fox’s ‘Cleveland Show’
Has the “Anime Bubble” burst?
Friday, May 8th, 2009 by Crap
via Japan Probe.
An interesting graph from an Asahi Shimbun article reporting that industry insiders are claiming that the “anime bubble has burst.” The top part with the red line shows the number of new works of anime produced each year since 2000. The bottom part shows total sales for the anime industry, with the darker blue section of each bar representing anime aimed at a general audience and the lighter colored section representing anime for kids. Both graphs show a decline since 2006.
Its not really a surprise. As a previous fan of the industry, I used to watch and follow well over twenty shows at a time in addition to a multitude of manga titles. Probably since about 3-4 years ago, anime as an industry seemed to heavily decline. What used to be an interesting and refreshing medium, seemed to quickly rely on formulaic pastiches to such an absurd level, that one could easily categorize all new productions into a small set of categorizations.
Amadou and Mariam’s “Masiteladi” Animated Video
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 by CrapNifty animated music video of Amadou and Mariam’s “Masiteladi” from Aurélia Vernhes, Clement Bolla, & Laurent Gillot. It sort of crosses the paper cutout style of works such as Flying Circus or more recently South Park, with the recent fad of kinetic typography videos.
Mr Ando of the Woods
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 by CrapA good dosage of WTF via Twitch the other day. Seriously, I have no idea what this is or what its supposed to be. All I know is its animated by Takashi TaniGuchi and called “Mr Ando of the Woods“.
“Cat Shit One” Trailer
Monday, March 30th, 2009 by CrapCat Shit One or otherwise known as Apocalypse Meow is being adapted into a CG-anime series. For those unfamiliar with the original manga, just watch the trailer embedded above for your daily dosage of WTF.
“Sita Sings the Blues” on Reel 13
Saturday, February 28th, 2009 by Crap
Sita Sings the Blues is an animated feature that is almost wholly produced by Nina Paley which spins together parallel narratives infused with the music of Annette Hanshaw and the myth of The Ramayana. The animation itself is quite impressive by any means, and each narrative is given its own distinctive style.
Paley paints a retelling of the Ramayana myth that explores the antiquated and insane expectations that were expected of the female protagonist Sita, and its similarities to the her own contemporary situation. The Ramayana narrative is the most cartoonish in its depiction, which implies a sense of exaggeration on Paley’s part. The visual representation of Sita is a complete idealization in her over-the-top hourglass figure, which contrast highly to the contemporary counterpart of Nina who is seen in more realistic proportions. Probably most interesting is Paley’s addition of a narrating motif which offers direct discourse on the myth being told. Absurdities, inconsistencies, and unrealistic expectations are explored expressing a sense of critique upon these antiquated standards that still survive today.
Also of interest, is that Paley ran into copyright trouble over this film regarding the Annette Hanshaw recordings despite being public domain since the 1950s. She took out a loan of 50K to pay off the demands and is still releasing the film free of charge. While you can stream the film at an acceptable quality on Reel 13, it will be made available for download at no cost on March 7 in HD and multiple resolutions.
Sita Sings the Blues on Reel 13 (Whole Film Streaming)
Sita Sings the Blues Official Site
Sita Sings the Blues (wiki)
