Awesome Animation

Fernando Livschitz of Black Sheep Films wows us with another amazing short film. The stop-motion clip was made by capturing live breakdance footage, mapping the frames into outlines, laser cutting each from wood, then layering the 800+ pieces to create a motion effect.

You know the worst thing about being visited by a ghost? Well, it’s not the hauntings or the creepy noises, it’s the slimy green ectoplasm they leave behind. Droodle has a conversation with the ghost of Joel Haver and asks him to kindly clean up his goo.

The only thing the bears in those Charmin commercials seem to care about is how soft their toilet paper is. It turns out that there’s a reason behind their strange obsession – at least according to this hilariously weird video from Joel Haver, Droodle, and Daxflame.

A team of TMNT fans from Speedokaggen created this impressive animated short film based on the comic book series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin. It recounts a pivotal scene from the story about a lone surviving Turtle seeking justice for his lost friends and family in a gritty future NYC. (Thanks, Edward!)

Remember Freddie Gredde, the guy behind those classic TV theme song and Cartoon medleys? Well he’s back with a brand new medley, a lovely 23-song collection from The Beatles, accompanied by a delightful animation he created himself – with a little help from his friend Kang Seunghyun.

This short science fiction film from anime director Akihiko Orikasa follows the story of an astronaut exploring the surface of Mars who stumbles onto the wreckage of a long-lost commercial vessel. While searching the site for survivors, he encounters something unexpected. Will he let his fears get the best of him?

In 1916, French and German armies battled each other in one of the bloodiest fights of the first World War. JD Brick Productions reenacted a portion of this lengthy and grueling confrontation using LEGO bricks and minifigures in one of the most epic stop-motion shorts of all time.

This insane video from China features a slab of raw pork belly that turns into a snake, a bee that turns into a fly, a hand that turns into a butcher’s knife, and a woman who defies the laws of physics. And if none of that makes any sense, hit play for the best instructional cooking video you’ll watch today.

A lot of stuff happens here on Earth. Some good, some bad, and some downright weird. Some of us humans believe there’s a all-seeing higher power guiding our destiny. Joel Haver and Trent Lenkarski think it’s something a little less impressive pulling the strings.

École de Condé animation students Ninon Ringenbach Trifilieff, Rodolphe Savolle, Paul-Adrien Butty, and Alexis Lainé created this charming short film about a lonely robot who wanders a junkyard in search of the parts to make a friend. They created the project in just two months using 3D animation tools Blender and Maya.

CG and video game animation have gotten very good over the years. But sometimes we long for the simpler and less realistic graphics of classic video game consoles. Hoolopee took footage from the Pixar movie Lightyear, and remade it in the style of the original Sony PlayStation, complete with low-poly, pixelated 3D models.

Jake Wegesin of Ambient Press created this wonderful CG short film about the space race of the 1950s and 1960s, offering a playful reinterpretation of the competition between the USA and USSR. Benjamin Widawksi’s music and the accompanying narration perfectly complement the black-and-white animation.

After getting fired from her job, Penny the cat encounters a stranger who offers her a chance to make a lot of money. His proposition is equal parts Fight Club and Squid Game. Victoria “Vewn” Vincent’s off-kilter animated short film explores how a need for cash and acceptance can lead us to some very dark places.

After being adopted from a shelter, an innocent rescue dog discovers that its new home is haunted by the ghosts of the family’s prior pets. Joe Cappa’s weird and creepy animated short film has moments of humor but is definitely more horror than comedy. We also love the tagline “Are You Afraid of the Bark?”

Disney+ returns to the world of Big Hero 6’s with a new animated series. Interested only in helping, our inflatable robot pal Baymax spends each episode trying to fix a physical issue that his systems identified and ultimately finds deeper meaning in each interaction.

This clever video makes it look like a giant hand is manipulating the real world by making pinch, pan, and zoom gestures. This effect was created in-camera with the help of a precisely choreographed model and hand actor behind the camera. Though we’re not sure how he got the finger gun past the metal detector.

Time-lapse 3D printing footage can look pretty awesome. Maker Caleb Kraft was wondering if it might be possible to add another layer of interest to models as they print, so he figured out a way to embed an animated flipbook that tells a story as the print is completed. The files are available for download on Printables.

3D illustrator Jared Owen previously showed us the inner workings of an M1A2 Abrams tank, the Statue of Liberty, and a WWII Enigma machine. Now he’s back with a detailed look at the insides of London’s Elizabeth Tower aka Big Ben, which is both an architectural and engineering marvel of enormous proportions.

Setting up a Rube Goldberg machine and getting it to all work perfectly can be quite difficult. Filmmaker Tomohiro Okazaki took a different approach to making their machine, building an impossible chain-reaction sequence using stop-motion animation.

Remember Marcel the Shell? Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer-Camp’s adorable and introspective mollusk is getting his own feature film. The movie follows our inquisitive pal Marcel as he sets out on a journey to find his family. Marcel stomps his tiny feet into theaters on 6.24.2022.

We all know how painful a visit to the Department of Motor Vehicles can be. But maybe we just need to lighten up and enjoy the experience for what it is. That’s what Doug Alberts of animation studio Noodle did, and he wrote a little song about it his newfound love for the DMV.

This excerpt from the documentary short The Special Effects of Karel Zeman showcases some of the late Czech filmmaker’s wildly inventive methods for creating movie magic with miniatures, fluids, smoke, forced perspective, and other camera tricks. You can watch the full documentary on YouTube.

Because of their positions at the top and bottom of the Earth, the North Pole and South Pole experience both the longest and shortest days of the year. This fascinating time-lapse animation shows how the top of our planet goes from 24 hours of sunlight a day in the summertime to complete darkness in the winter.