In the era of Adult Swim and "Family Guy," it may be hard to recall, but there was a time when animation was strictly for kids. While grown ups might have enjoyed the art and humor of "Tom and Jerry," animation was for years largely ghettoized in Saturday morning children's programming blocks. By late 1980s, however, as Baby Boomers grew up, animation took on … Read the full Story >>
Last week, we spotlighted Vermont-based animator Rob Donnelly's motion illustration for a letter sent to Slate magazine's popular online advice column, "Dear Prudence." In that IMAA-winning piece, Donnelly used lurid colors to interpret a vexing question from a man who had befriended a prostitute. Today we look at another IMAA 2-winning animation from Donnelly, this one illustrating a "Dear Prudence" letter from a young … Read the full Story >>
Painter, author, designer, and educator Laurie Rosenwald notes at her website that she speaks Swedish like a native New Yorker, which makes sense since she divides her time between NYC and Stockholm. Her drawings have appeared in the New Yorker, New York magazine, and other publications, and she leads a novel workshop series on "how to make mistakes on purpose." Her new minute-and-a-half animated … Read the full Story >>
If you thought life at Dunder Mifflin was weird, wait until you spend a day at the office with Mindt Chuply and Lamar Babcock.Those are the two animated characters invented by Brooklyn-based illustrator Jason Coates for a comic strip that takes office humor into surreal new directions. In 2012, Coates decided that his comic would work better as an animated web series, so he … Read the full Story >>
Australian filmmaker David Maurice Smith's documentary "Living in the Shadows" is look at the Barkindji, an aboriginal people living in a community called Wilcannia in New South Wales. "Like many other Aboriginal Australians, the Barkindji people live in the deep shadows of the stereotypes attached to being indigenous in this country. Despite being the traditional keepers of one of the most prosperous countries on … Read the full Story >>
Brooklyn-based filmmaker Dustin Cohen's short documentary "The Shoemaker" is the fourth installment of a video series about the craftspeople and artisans who live in his beloved borough. "Whether it's a couple of young guys opening up a woodworking shop in Greenpoint or a shoemaker in Bensonhurst who's been at it for over seven decades, I find it amazing how many people are creating and … Read the full Story >>
"A lot of times my best images come from seemingly dry topics, because they force me to think more abstractly and symbolically. I always do my best work with very general, rather than specific, art direction," says illustrator and motion-design artist Richard Borge. Much of Borge's work features fanciful, complicated mechanical contraptions, so when a friend at the strategic marketing company White Rhino mentioned … Read the full Story >>
New York-based photographer Platon has created enduring and provocative portraits of artists, astronauts, authors, and world leaders, but, he says, he has found a way to go further to reveal the people in front of his lens. "During a photo shoot, we go through such a journey together, the sitter and I, and at the end of it there's this openness, honesty, and humility … Read the full Story >>
Sometimes the real idea of a motion piece doesn't present itself until the shooting is over and the editing begins. Such was the case with the stylish video created by New York-based photographer and filmmaker Carlos Serrao called "The Hip Hop Oligarchs," which featured the musical artists A$AP Rocky, Wiz Khalifa, and Big Boi. "Our visual concept for this shoot evolved after we starting … Read the full Story >>
Today we begin an occasional series called "How I Did It," in which Motion Arts Pro readers give us a behind-the-scenes account focusing on recent projects. First up is illustrator and filmmaker Gayle Kabaker's "Travel Changes Lives," a short promoting educational travel company ACIS. "It's a very cool project," Kabakeer says of the two-and-a-half-minute piece, which was named a winner of the International Motion … Read the full Story >>
Tyler Stableford has earned a reputation as one of the world's top action-sports photographers and more recently has emerged as a top action-sports cinematographer and film director. His motion work is distinguished not only by its beauty and drama--man's need to test himself against nature is a theme that runs throughout Stableford's videos--but also by its emotional authenticity. A case in point is his … Read the full Story >>
Georgia, Alabama and Florida are locked in an epic battle over the fresh water from their once bountiful rivers, including the Chattahoochee--the waterway that photographers and filmmakers David and Michael Hanson remember from growing up in Atlanta. Now based in Seattle, the brothers returned for a 30-day canoe trip down the Chattahoochee to create a documentary film exploring the issues surrounding the South's so-called … Read the full Story >>
"I have found that film versions of the photography I produce work well on the web and can add another dimension to a project," says British photographer David Stewart. Along with his commercial photographic work, Stewart has created a number of noted fine-art series, including "Teenage Pre-Occupation," a documentary-style look at teens who, as he puts it, "are wrapped up in their own world … Read the full Story >>
Eric Daigh is a Michigan-based technology artist--or, as he is also known, a pushpin artist--who has re-interpreted the art of photographic portraiture by altering what he calls "the delivery method." In essence, Daigh "prints" his photographs using thousands of colored pushpins in place of pixels. You can see him at work in his International Motion Art Award-winning stop-motion video, which shows Daigh creating a … Read the full Story >>
Andrew Hida's documentary about Andrew Cunningham and Tony Reuter began as a class project at Syracuse University focused on a power soccer team for disabled young men. But it evolved into something far more moving, an intimate look at the relationship between Cunningham, a 13-year-old with a rare form of muscular dystrophy, and 21-year-old Reuter, who was born with brittle bone disease. "The more … Read the full Story >>
Humans, curious creatures, are often driven to explore what lies beneath the surface of things; artists and other inquiring souls often use this urge to burrow below the conscious mind. Jun Cen, a Chinese-born illustrator and animator now living in New York City, says that his beautiful, dreamlike film "Mutual Tunnels" was inspired by his desire to examine his inner self--or, more specifically, his … Read the full Story >>
"Working with John, I'm always looking to do the bizarre, something a bit shocking and uncomfortable," says Chicago-based photographer and filmmaker Sandro Miller. The John he speaks of is the actor John Malkovich, a longtime friend and frequent portrait subject, and the motion work they have created together is indeed unsettling--brilliantly so. The latest example is the International Motion Art Awards-winning vignette "Ecstasy," in … Read the full Story >>
Can a promotional video for a shopping mall's complex customer-loyalty program be both informative and fun? Astonishingly, the answer is yes. But perhaps what's most astonishing about the International Motion Art Awards-winning video made for the Shopville Le Gru mall in Turin, Italy, is that the people who created it rarely saw each other--except for the few times they met during online Skype conferences. … Read the full Story >>
Filmmakers have been gazing at the moon in wonderment almost as long as films have been made. Georges Melies's 1902 French silent "A Trip to the Moon" famously gave the shining orb a human face and personality, and so does animator Aleson Ho in her International Motion Art Awards-winning "The Man Who Shot the Moon." While Melies used ground-breaking special effects to tell his … Read the full Story >>
Ron Haviv, the co-founder of the VII photo agency, is one of the best-known photojournalists in the world, having compiled an unflinching record of conflict and social injustices for publications like the New Yorker, Paris Match, Time, Stern, and Vanity Fair. (Starting today, New York City's Anastasia Gallery features a retrospective of Haviv's 23-year career.) In recent years, Haviv has also moved into motion … Read the full Story >>
