short film

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with short film

Music Photography

A Dizzying Zoetrope Flashes Scenes of Portugal Through a Train Window

Irish director and animator Kevin McGloughlin (previously) and his brother Páraic (aka the McGloughlin Brothers) recently collaborated on a new short film that speeds through urban and rural regions of Portugal with an eye toward recurring structures and patterns. The music video for Bonobo’s new single “ATK,” the zoetrope flashes a series of photos at an incredibly fast pace, appearing to capture the scenes from the window of a train. Spliced into a dizzying sequence, the animation reveals a range of cohesive elements from the lines of terracotta roofing and ceramic tiles with colorful motifs to skinny streets that flicker in rapid succession.

Watch more mesmerizing compilations by the McGloughlin Brothers on Vimeo.

Animation

A Kayak Trip Sends a Father on Anxiety-Provoking Adventures in an Adorable Animated Short

Multiple scenarios that would give any parent nightmares actualize in the adventurous animation “Kayak.” What begins as a peaceful trip down the river for a father and baby becomes an endless slew of anxiety-inducing incidents as the child trips, ends up upside down in the water, launches into the air several times, and is even preyed upon by a hungry eagle. The short film, which teeters on the terrifying, is a graduation project by students at the French animation school École des Nouvelles Images.

Animation

Animator Anna Samo Scripts a Love Letter to Artists in Her Short Film ‘Conversations With a Whale’

Artists know this story well: an opportunity opens for an exhibition or a festival and in goes the application, but all that comes back is a rejection letter. While one or two letters of this kind might be easy to dismiss, they weigh heavily on one’s mind if they start to pile up. Animator Anna Samo taps into the unique emotional and mental fatigue endured by creatives who keep hitting roadblocks. In her stop-motion film “Conversations with a Whale,” she turns the prospect of a “no” into a fresh perspective on growth.

Created directly under the camera lens using a variety of analog filming techniques, the short follows a filmmaker who grapples with one rejection letter after another. Samo wrote in a director’s note that the piece “grew out of the necessity to reinvent my own creative process. It is based on my experience of rejection and failure. Why do I make films? Is it the success I long for and depend on? Does anyone need what I am doing? And if no one needs it, do I still have the right to do it?” While navigating the ups and downs of the creative process, the protagonist plumbs the depths of dreams and ideas for a concept that finally blossoms and bears fruit. Samo continues, “If you are a fig tree, you have to bear fruits. If you are an artist, you have to make art.”

You can find more information about the film on its website and see more work from Samo on Vimeo and Instagram.

Animation

Kinetic Actions Trigger Mesmerizing Tessellations and Patterns in an Absorbing Short Film

Basic geometric forms like circles, triangles, and lines alchemize into a hypnotic study of patterns in a new short film from the Barcelona-based Diatomic Studio. Part of their Tiles series, the animation applies kinetic principles to minimal, black-and-white renderings. The actions, which include transaction, rotation, and trajectory, transform the otherwise static shapes into mesmerizing tessellations and increasingly complex and dizzying motifs. For more of Diatomic Studio’s experiments in geometry and physics, head to Vimeo.

Animation

A Brilliant Orange Orb Shape-Shifts Through Time in a Meditative Animated Short

A metaphor for the way fragments of time both accumulate and mutate as they slip from one moment to the next, a glowing sphere is the subject of a calming short film by Argentinian artist Ezequiel Pini, of Six N. Five. The CGI animation follows the bright orb as it expands, multiplies, and transfigures into alternate forms like a sun dropping beneath the horizon and windows evocative of the recently demolished Nakagin Capsule Tower. Although simple in shape, the round object “represents care, calm, and attention to achieve its ultimate perfection. We are a circle, without boundaries, beginning or end. Infinity,” Pini says. Watch more of his poetic works on Vimeo.

Animation

Abstract Forms Evolve into Insects and Animals in a Hypnotic Animation by kanahebi

Chaotic masses of rounded shapes morph into insects, animals, and other organic lifeforms in a new animation by Hideki Inaba, aka kanahebi (previously). Drawing on the inevitability of change, “FLOW” opens with a small cluster of matter that swirls into a diatom-like disk. The digital renderings expand in size, form, and density throughout the short film as they contort into increasingly complex creatures from beetles and butterflies to birds and sweeping, radial motifs containing multiple species. For more of kanahebi’s mesmerizing animations, visit Vimeo and Instagram.