Awesome Stop Motion

A beautiful, sad and creepy claymation by Allison Schulnik. The song is It’s Raining Today by Noel Scott Engel. That monotone string section is going to haunt our dreams for some time.

From the creators of Coraline comes ParaNorman, about a boy who uses his ability to speak with the dead to defend his town from the undead. We’re not sure yet if he can speak with them as well.

You don’t have to be a fan of Gears of War to enjoy this wonderfully-made LEGO stop motion short by Kooberz Studios. Captures the grisly battles of the game without being too gory.

What starts off as your standard (boring) unboxing video for the new Samsung Central Station becomes a grim reminder of what the future holds for us. Ok, so it’s not so grim.

Composer Matteo Negrin’s music soars thanks to the animated visual accompaniment that Alice Ninni, Luca Cattaneo and Alberto Filippini provided for his “Lacrime Di Giulietta.”

This cool stop-motion film by animator Sarah Wickens was made using rays of reflected sunlight as the primary medium. We’ve never seen light grow fingernails before, though.

Different sides of Tokyo – from random citizens to the swarm-like urban populace, from snapshots of daily life, to a salary man sleeping standing up in a busy train station – presented by Alex Lee.

Rolls of adhesive tape act as seeds, and the tape makes that familiar peeling sound as they grow. Dutch artist Johan Rijpma spent a total of 6 months to make this stop motion video.

Eran Amir convinced 500 of his closest friends (and strangers) to pose with 1500+ unique photographs, creating an awesome dual-layered stop motion film which will have you coming back for seconds.

Carine Khalifé says she listened to Blown Minded off Young Galaxy’s album SHAPESHIFTING  over 1,000 times to get the atmosphere just right for this glass-painted, stop-motion animation.

While the average person passing this geometric green sculpture might admire its looks, they would have no idea that it was actually slowly changing form, unless they saw this final stop-motion film.

A stop motion version of Sesame Street’s 12 pinball sequence. We love Beirut, and Perrin Cloutier’s rendition isn’t bad at all, but the original music is just way too groovy to ever be replaced.

Watch as Vimeo user Petey Boy takes his friend Tom from nothing there to hair everywhere in less than a minute. It’s noble that he sacrificed superhuman strength for our entertainment.

Aardman’s Sumo Science shot this massive animation on an 11,000 sq. ft. set, using tons of sand and life-size props then shot every frame with a Nokia N8 (as a promo for the N8, of course.)

While artist Thomas Pavitte’s finished Mona Lisa doesn’t look exactly like da Vinci’s original, you have to give him credit for solving this connect-the-dot image with a mind-numbing 6239 dots.

A surreal mix of stop-motion animation composited with a live actor, Lizzie Oxby’s engrossing, award-winning short film was originally released in 2003, but you can catch the entire thing online right now.

A smooth and action-packed short by John H. featuring one of the most famous rivalries in video games, Final Fantasy VII‘s Cloud against Sephiroth (with special guests). Behind the scenes here.

New York’s //kneeon produced this rather lovely looking stop-motion video for the song Flower by Amos Lee; it takes place in a delicate world, crafted almost entirely out of white paper.

While not quite at the level of action figure stop motion master Patrick Boivin’s works, Kyle Roberts’ Battle of the Bonds is still a hoot to watch, if only for Sean Connery’s crude jokes.

A fridge full of leftovers contends with encroaching frost, doing what they need to do to survive in this offbeat short film by Dave Green, with a special appearance by David Cross as Ham Sandwich.

Individual light paintings take a lot of time and effort to pull off. So a light painted music video is a real feat. Darcy Prendergast of Oh Yeah Wow spent 6 months making this video for All India Radio.

Photographer Ryan Kothe uses stop-motion to incredible effect in his exploration of the deterioration of everyday objects. If your stuff wears out this quick, you’ve got big problems.

Compressing 11 hours into two minutes, Nate Bolt’s stop-motion vid of his flight from San Francisco to Paris includes sheer gorgeousness: mountains, stars wheeling overhead, and the Aurora Borealis.