Experimental Animation Pioneer Robert Breer Dies
His style was followed by everyone from Monty Python to MTV, but for sheer optical pleasure, Robert Breer’s short avant-garde animations can’t be beaten. The New York Times eulogizes:
Robert Breer, an animator whose use of novel techniques opened up a new language for film, died on Aug. 11 at his home in Tucson. He was 84. Mr. Breer, a painter by training, early on saw the potential for breaking with the narrative sequences and anthropomorphic forms that defined the medium [of animation].
Viewers were bombarded with wiggling lines, letters, abstract shapes and live-action images that jumped and flashed, zoomed and receded. “He was a seminal figure in the new American cinema and the American avant-garde beginning in the 1950s and continuing right up to the present,” said Andrew Lampert of the Anthology Film Archives in Manhattan.
Nuclear Apocalypse Animation That Scared Ed Sullivan Audiences Still Scares Today
io9 and CONELRAD Adjacent detail a broadcast of the Ed Sullivan Show that “scared the hell out of kids” when a short animation was aired on 27 May 1956. Peter and Joan Foldes’ cartoon, A Short Vision, depicts a nuclear apocalypse, showing the faces of men and animals melting off, the audience off guard when Sullivan shared no warning but this introduction:
“Just last week you read about the H-bomb being dropped. Now two great English writers, two very imaginative writers – I’m gonna tell you if you have youngsters in the living room tell them not to be alarmed at this ‘cause it’s a fantasy, the whole thing is animated – but two English writers, Joan and Peter Foldes, wrote a thing which they called ‘A Short Vision’ in which they wondered what might happen to the animal population of the world if an H-bomb were dropped. It’s produced by George K. Arthur and I’d like you to see it. It is grim, but I think we can all stand it to realize that in war there is no winner.”
Secret of NIMH? Memory Implant Boosts Brain Function in Rats
This article reminds me a bit of The Secret of NIMH. Yes, my first awareness of animal experimentation was likely from a(n) Disney animated movie. Benedict Carey writes in the New York Times:
Though still a long way from being tested in humans, the implant demonstrates for the first time that a cognitive function can be improved with a device that mimics the firing patterns of neurons. In recent years neuroscientists have developed implants that allow paralyzed people to move prosthetic limbs or a computer cursor, using their thoughts to activate the machines.
In the new work, being published Friday, researchers at Wake Forest University and the University of Southern California used some of the same techniques to read neural activity. But they translated those signals internally, to improve brain function rather than to activate outside appendages.
“It’s technically very impressive to pull something like this off, given our current level of technology,” said…
Salvador Dalí Made a Cartoon with Walt Disney (Video)
This is an unexpected find, and a good one from Cyriaque Lamar on io9.com:
In 1946, Salvador Dalí collaborated with Walt Disney animators on Destino, a surrealist animation that was storyboarded but scrapped due to budgetary concerns. Destino wouldn’t be finished until 2003, when Roy Disney resurrected the project. Melting clocks à la Disney!
Taiwanese News Animation Of Bin Laden’s Death
Struggling to explain the news about Osama bin Laden to an under-informed friend? Next Media Animation delivers a succinct synopsis of the killing (as imagined by most Americans?) — including the fate awaiting bin Laden in hell.
Psychedelic Anti-Marijuana PSA
“It’s the hula-hoop of the jet generation.”
Out of several decades worth of iconic anti-marijuana television scare-verts, my favorite is this vintage American Medical Association PSA, which appears to have definitely been made by animators who were high on something.
U.S. Debt Outlook Downgraded To Negative By S&P For First Time Since Pearl Harbor Attack (Animation)
If anyone’s confused by the news of Standard and Poor’s downgrading the U.S. debt outlook, here’s the Next Media Animation:
Supercontinents of Planet Earth: 650 Million Years in Under 2 Minutes (Video)
Alasdair Wilkins on io9.com has a great post about the past and future of our planet’s continents. Definitely worth a read:
Earth’s continents are constantly changing, moving and rearranging themselves over millions of years — affecting Earth’s climate and biology. Every few hundred million years, the continents combine to create massive, world-spanning supercontinents.
Here’s the past and future of Earth’s supercontinets.
Democracy Without Politicians or Elections (As We Currently Know Them)…
If this economic crisis has done anything, it has exposed our so called “democracy” as a fraud.
I believe the problem is simple: Politicians are no longer accountable after they win the election. Because if they were accountable then they wouldn’t be able to transfer the massive amounts of taxpayer wealth to the bankers. They wouldn’t be able to ignore the massive fraud in the mortgage “securitization” business.
They wouldn’t be able to change the FASB (accounting) rules so that bankrupt banks could hold their assets at pre-crash prices. And if the only thing citizens can do is riot in the streets and still be ignored by their governments, then it’s safe to say that while politicians hold office they are unaccountable.
In this video I present an alternative to our “democracy”: No elections. No politicians. Instead, it’s a political system where citizen completely control the legislative process without needing to be actively involved in crafting the legislation. In other words, they can continue living their lives, but they have absolute control over the laws in their country:
Planets Viewed From Earth As If They Were At The Moon’s Distance (Animation)
Great job by BradBlogSpeed.com. Have to say … I am afraid of Jupiter!:
‘Demon Squirrel’ Stars In New Russian Anti-Alcoholism Campaign (Video)
Man, this rodent needs to lay off the sauce. Via BBC News:
A Russian cartoon on alcoholism featuring a red-eyed “demon squirrel” with “the shakes” has had more than a million views on YouTube.
The squirrel rants about “chasing spiders up the walls” with a friend, who then murders his wife. The public information ad has created a buzz word, “kudyapliki” — imaginary creatures the squirrel and his friend want to hunt during their binge. “Are you on the booze yourself?” he asks at the end. “I’ll be seeing you.”
Tea-Partier Explains How Our Freedoms Are In Jeopardy (Animation)
I feel like this is a conversation most people would like to have with members of the Tea Party. Job well done.
Taiwanese Animation: America’s ‘Giant’ Bedbug Problem
In its latest CGI masterpiece, New Media Animation tackles America’s takeover by bedbugs. This is an accurate depiction of what is already happening in certain apartments in New York:
The Story of Delaware Senate Hopeful Christine O’Donnell (Animated)
Thank you, thank you, thank you Next Media Animation popularized here in the U.S. by Apple Daily. As described:
A Tea Party insurgency has left rancor and discord within the GOP’s big tent. Led by Sarah Palin, Tea Party candidates have scored several primary upsets against establishment candidates. The latest victor is Christine O’Donnell.
The anti-masturbation candidate has won the Republican senate nomination in Delaware, causing strategist Karl Rove to self-immolate on national television.
The Democrats, believing the Tea Party cannot win in a general election, are predictably happy with Tea Party’s primary success. But are the Democrat’s underestimating the strength of this populist movement?
Donald Duck Meets Glenn Beck
Artist Jonathan McIntosh created a bitingly satiric Donald Duck cartoon remix by weaving together dozens of classic Disney cartoons to tell the story of an unemployed, frustrated Donald Duck who finds comfort in the radio program of one Glenn Beck.
Will Donald’s feelings of disenfranchisement lead him to be persuaded by his radio’s increasingly paranoid and xenophobic rhetoric?
One-Minute CGI Version Of The Facebook Movie
Next Media Animation, the Taiwanese media outlet that produces genius CGI animations of breaking news stories, has created a one-minute recap of The Social Network, featuring all the crucial bits (i.e. the steamy sex scenes).
Taiwanese Animation Takes On The Ground Zero Mosque Controversy
Taiwan’s Next Media Animation presents another in their series of incredible CGI renderings of U.S. news events, this time doing an overview of recent Islamophobia in America, including the anti-ground-zero-mosque protests, proposed Koran-burnings in Florida, and (the highlight) Barack Obama as an evil crypto-Muslim.
Watch What a Legal Pot Economy Looks Like (Video)
Haik Hoisington writes on Alternet:
This fall Californians will go the polls with a chance to make history. They will be able to cast a vote to tax and regulate marijuana like alcohol or cigarettes. California’s Proposition 19 is one of many similar initiatives cropping up on state ballots across the country.
Whether it’s calls for decriminalization or medical marijuana the end of cannabis prohibition has never seemed closer. In this short animated parable, “The Flower,” award winning artist Haik Hoisington contrasts a legal marijuana economy with an illegal one, to show how everyone stands to benefit from ending the war on weed.
