Portlandia - Rats

If you've never herd of the show Portlandia, let me sum it up for you. Portlandia is a hilarious tv series set in Portland Oregon and it stars SNL's Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein from the bands Wild Flag and Sleater-Kinney. In the show, they impersonate manny of Portlan's stereo typical characters such as vegan hippies, environmentalists, hipster, punks, extreme feminists and much more. It's the type of humour that makes you think "that's funny because it's true", it has an akward kinda humour too that I love! And on one of the episode they had a little stop motion short, (posted above) Hope you enjoy!

GREAT PERFORMANCES | Peter & the Wolf | Making of Peter

I stumbled upon this short a few years ago, and I thought I'd share it with you. I think this animation has a lot of beautiful shots and the character puppets are aesthetically pleasing too. The number one "faux pas" in stop motion puppet design, is making them look too creepy. Witch is hard to do since dolls and puppets in general are  creepy and bringing them to life (or in motion) adds to the creepy factor. One mistake I often see in stop motion is mouth and eye animation. If you can't master mouth mouvement, don't do it. And I think that this animation does it very well with the few facial expressions it has in the film. Even though there are few different facial expressions, you can still feel the emotions in each of the characters. There are numerous ways to portray emotion in film making. One way they did this, is through the soundtrack. As if the music did most of the talking. The overall puppet animation is ok but I think the wolf is the one that's animated the best here. And I love the little crow that can't fly and the hilarious fat cat! Oh and poor duck! :(

I must aquire this book!

Making Fantastic Mr. Fox

This has got to be my all time favorite stop motion film. 

Not only is this my favourtie movie, but it's also made by my favourite director, the brilliant Wes Anderson. I can't begin to describe why this movie is one of the most creative thing I've ever seen in my life. The entirety of it is simply perfect. The feeling I get when I watch this movie is indescibable, but to sum it up, this movie makes me really happy. It's amazing to what extent they went to in making all the little details we see in the movie. Everything feels hand made and crafty. I love the warm fall like color scheme, and who doesn't like animals in tiny little outfits!  I also love the vintage feel to it, but that's just a Wes Anderson trait. Not to forget the quirky humour, the amazing soundtrack and all the big shot celebs who do the voices. If I was ever to make my own stop motion short one day (witch we will soon), it would defenitely be inspired by this movie.

"Bottle" by Kirsten Lepore (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

(Notes on) biology LEGENDADO

Western Spaghetti by PES

 

These little aniamtions are so fun! Love the creative object use here. And the sound adds to the believability of it all.

Coraline set design

Here are a few people working on the sets of Coraline. I love the color scheme of the house and how they nailed the old antique look of the Pink palace. Details are key when making miniature scaled objects. 

"The making of Coraline" - Doll Hair

"The making of Coraline" - Tiny Knitting

For me, Coraline is the most beautiful Stop motion movie created since Tim Burton's "The nightmare before Christmas".  Based on a Novel by Neil Gaiman, this animation has both the whimsical and colourful aspects of a child's world  as well as a creepy and slightly more mature story line. This video displays to what extent Laika (the company who made this film) wentto in reproducing life like object into miniature scale. If you havn't seen Coraline yet go see it now!

Colargol

I remembered having watched this in elementary school a long long time ago. And I'Ve been searching for it for a long time but couldn't remember what it was called because I only had a very faint memory of it. But I finally found it and am glad that it still looks as adorable as I remembered it.  "Colargol" is a Kids stop motion tv show that came out in the 1950s. And as you can see, it's quite adorable!