Fabrice O. Joubert

Award winning French animator Fabrice O. Joubert produced this little number. French Roast is a simple observation of human interaction.

Stylish, simple and charming. What more could you possibly want in ashort film?

Japanese toilet training

On a less serious note...

This is hilarious...

Wladyslaw Starewicz

‘The Cameraman’s Revenge’

This stop-motion film was created in 1912, making it light years ahead of it’s time. It’s the story of a cheating wife and her husband, acted out by beetles.

The bug models were so realistic that when the film was first seen in America, the Americans thought the Russians had trained live bugs to perform it.

By today’s standards it’s very lo tech. But we think that adds to the charm. And the dancing frog in the nightclub is very funny.

Unfortunately, Starewicz won’t be producing any new films any day soon as he’s been dead for 45 years. However, if you like what you see check out his filmography at:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0823088/

Sylvain Chomet

Sylvain was born in Yvelines, near Paris, where he studied art at high school until he graduated in 1982.

In 1986 he published his first comic, Secrets of the Dragon Fly.

Ten years later he produced the short film The Old Lady and the Pigeons. This won him a BAFTA, the Grand Prize at the Annecy Festival, the Cartoon d’Or prize, as well as the Audience Prize and Jury Prize at the Angers Premiers Plans Festival. It also received an Oscar nomination for best short film.

His first feature length animated film; Les Triplettes de Belleville (Belleville Rendezvous in the UK) was also nominated for two Oscars in 2003 (Best animated feature and Best song).

His second feature, ‘The Illusionist’ is out sometime later this year. There is no official trailer for this yet, except (bizarrely) in Russia. Here’s the trailer. Looks like another winner.

Marc Craste

If you’ve ever walked home in the dark and enjoyed looking up at heavily falling snow you’re in for a treat. The way Marc captures light is incredible and quite haunting.

One of his first films, Jojo and the stars, won a BAFTA and was awarded Best Animation at the 2004 Clermont-Ferrand International Film Festival.

Since then we have worked with Mr Craste and can honestly say he’s a thoroughly nice chap. Lately he’s gone on to greater things, working commercially on Guinness, Lloyds and the BBC. His latest project Varmints looks like another winner.

For more about Marc and his work go to:

http://www.studioaka.co.uk/go/marccraste/#/-marccraste

Suzie Templeton

Her 1999 graduation film about a man who fell in love with a giant cabbage scooped 12 international awards. But nothing was to prepare Suzie for the Oscar she won with Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. It took her and 200 other people 5 years to make. 2 years on the script and storyline alone. It’s a beautiful piece of animation full of emotion. And fully deserves the accolades it received.

Eat your heart out Gromit.

Pete Candeland

Pete Candeland works for Passion pictures.

He’s worked on numerous large-scale animation projects for the BBC, Diet Coke and Kia. He’s also worked closely with Liam Hewlett on the Gorillaz animations, including the new single ‘Stylo’.

But personally, we think his best work is the intro he did for the Beatles Rock Band game. This is stunning.

Check it out for yourself below.



To see the rest of his work go to

http://www.passion-pictures.com/flash.html#page=p3

Shynola

Shynola is the collective name of a group of visual artists based in London who’ve collaborated on a variety of projects, including a number of acclaimed music videos.
One of their latest pieces is this cool promo they shot for Coldplay.

Before watching it, it’s worth noting that the entire video was shot in camera. A lot of effort, but in our opinion, it was worth every second.

To see more of their work go to http://www.shynola.com/

TXT ISLAND

Eine's typographical nonsense brings us neatly onto our next subject for random analysis.

This video animation by Chris Gavin for Tandem Films is very nice indeed. Using only letters found on those old greasy spoon cafe signs he's managed to create a whole Island of fun.
We will be analysing animation for a little while. Which is nice.

EINE

Ben Eine started life as a credible graffiti writer before moving into a more typographical field. He also worked as the main screen printer at Pictures on Walls before leaving to pursue his own career.
How the fuck he gets away with painting 10 foot tall, neon coloured letters, on walls in the middle of the street is anybody’s guess.
But he does and you have to love him for it.
These letters are much better in the flesh. (You can see they’re hand painted). So keep an eagle eye out for them when you’re next in London’s East End

D*Face

D*face is a London based graffiti artist who was inspired by Henry Chalfant’s books ‘Spraycan Art’ and ‘Subway Art’ when he was young. This, plus his love of skateboarding, helped shape his style which can now be seen all over the world.

He first started by ‘acquiring’ sticky vinyl from DIY shops, which he used to create stickers. And as the size of these stickers grew, so did his ambition.

He’s since been known to take over entire billboards, create huge concrete sculptures and his first ‘proper’ art exhibition in Oct 2006 completely sold out. Which, indecently, is what some of his fans accused him of when he worked with Christina Aguilera on her album cover.

Personally, we don’t blame him for taking the cash. Besides, we work in advertising so who are we to criticise people for selling out?

Below are a few examples of his work:

FAILE

Patrick McNeil, Patrick Miller, and Aiko Nakagawa are the three original founding members of Faile. Formed in 1999 in Brooklyn New York. They were arrested one night, while pasting work up on the streets, and to mark the event decided to re-arrange the letters of A-Life (their original name) and FAILE was born.
The three artists worked collaboratively using imagery from comic books, yellow pages, and advertising. And although Aiko left in 2006 to pursue her own career. The two Patrick’s still form a formidable street art team. Screen print, stencil, and eventually sculpture and fine art have been the order of things. Lately they have even been carving Indian prayer poles.

www.faile.net/

Zevs

Zevs is another prominent name in the world of French street art.

His early work included painting shadows around street furniture in Paris and ‘bombing’ models' faces on 48 sheet posters to make it look like they’d been shot, with red paint dripping from their eyes and foreheads.

His most famous works are his ‘Liquidated Logos’ where he drips paint from the logos of huge corporations such as McDonalds, Coca Cola and Apple, to make it look like they are melting.

He says: “By pouring paint over the logos, it dissolves in front of the viewer’s eyes, drawing attention to, and visually disturbing the recognisable and omnipresent trademark.”

A bit pretentious? Perhaps. But remember, when you’re French you can spout any amount of hot air and still sound poetic. Besides, his work looks cool, so we’ll let him off. See below.

Adam Neate

Pizza boxes form his canvases. And a mixture of paint and collage is usually the medium of choice for Adam’s figurative work.

Adam began as a graphic designer in an ad agency. But his heart wasn’t in it, and soon he was creating paintings using objects he found on the streets. This use of cheap ‘canvases’ allowed him an experimental freedom in his work. And what he found on the street he put back on the street. Often leaving work on street walls, or in shop and office doorways.

Elms picked him up in early 2007, and his first show sold out within hours of opening. Shortly after, in December of the same year, a painting titled ‘Suicide Bomber’ sold at Christies for £78,500.

In 2008 Adam famously decided to give 1000 pieces of work away in a single night. Screen prints, stamped with his signature and wrapped in cellophane were left, like most of his others, on London’s mean streets. Happily not all of them ended up on EBay.

Above 1 of 1000 left on the street.

Prepare to be invaded.

The last post on photography brings us neatly into our next subject, Graffiti art.

Unless you’ve been living on mars for the last 10 years or so you will be aware of Banksy and his expensive daubs. So we’re not going to talk about him. Instead we’re going to draw your attention to some of the less familiar heroes of this movement. First up a reality game by Invader.

A French lover of the original space invaders game, his work adorns many of the major capitals of the world. You might have seen them on your travels if you have an eye for these things.

They are usually stuck (out of arms reach) high up on shop walls, old brick buildings and disused warehouses. It’s also rumoured that he has adorned the famous HOLLYWOOD hill sign, putting an invasion kit on each letter.

The invasion began in 1988 in his home town of Paris. But has now extended to 35 major cities. Invaders are made from tiles in advance and grouted onto walls before being catalogued and photographed by the artist.

You’ll find his website link below. And if your trigger fingers quick enough, you can pick up the latest invader kit No 12.

http://www.space-invaders.com

Just seen this amazing film by video artist Patrick Jean. (Thanks Lee). Which seems to fit beautifully with this post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcXtT3rZcqg