{"id":7905,"date":"2013-02-11T03:32:15","date_gmt":"2013-02-11T08:32:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mondomark.com\/wordpress\/?p=3785"},"modified":"2013-02-11T03:32:15","modified_gmt":"2013-02-11T08:32:15","slug":"packaged-goods-artful-animation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=7905","title":{"rendered":"Packaged Goods – Artful Animation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Even after consuming Krazy-Glue, he can still wobble in time. (Brown catatonic dude, front row and first right)<\/p><\/div>\n

Although animated films and commercials were important components in prior entries of the TIFF Bell Lightbox\u2019 Packaged Goods<\/strong> series<\/a>, they never received their own showcase – \u00a0until now.<\/p>\n

Screening Wednesday February 20th at 7pm<\/a>, Artful Animation<\/strong> features the familiar mix of music videos, adverts, PSA\u2019s, and short films, and the 64 minutes of material will be followed by discussion with Gerald Ding, Creative Director of the commercial studio Psyop.<\/p>\n

Starting with the music video category is C2C\u2019s \u201cThe Beat,\u201d which artfully blends rotoscoped and computer animated sketches and geometric line drawings with a pulsing, bass-friendly soundtrack. The only downside to the video is that it\u2019s too short \u2013 just as the bass groove and interwoven patterns start to really get into gear, the video winds down, leaving us wanting a lot more of director Dai-Dai Tran\u2019s fluid imagery.<\/p>\n

According to director Ryan Staake, when Diplo\u2019s \u201cSet It Off\u201d is blasting through the cosmic reaches of space, pole dancers begin to gather on not one but an entire web-work of poles, gyrating in slow-motion while the galaxy\u2019s stars twinkle in tandem with their tassels and gilded wardrobe. More than other videos, this short benefits from a cinema screening due to its pulsing rhythm and the crisp HD cinematography which captures the nuances of Earth\u2019s orbiting exotic dancers who bravely keep the male astronauts in the Space Station sane during their months in a spam canister.<\/p>\n

An armless Elijah Wood (Lord of the Rings<\/strong>) experiences a surreal dream where objects within his bedroom reassemble into a robotic arm and make him whole in Flying Lotus’ \u201cTiny Tortures\u201d; and Gotye returns to the TBL screen with \u201cEasy Way Out.\u201d Their video features a full 360 degree pan motion that gradually gathers all of the singer\u2019s clones in the merging bedroom, kitchen, and office sets. The weirdest video of the lot is Converse\u2019s \u201cDoanything\u201d that chronicles a youth waking up in a crowded, filthy frat house, and narrowly missing the ire of a serial killer housemate, \u00a0and the consumption of human ears.<\/p>\n

Strangeness also dominates Andrew Huang\u2019s often beautiful \u201cSolipsist\u201d which is ostensibly about the life cycle between two underwater dancers who become jellyfish variants, and two humanoid men whose heads implode into clouds of explosive red sand. The soundtrack is exceptionally vivid, and Huang\u2019s animation style features almost seamless blending between practical and animated effects. Those with bug phobias (especially house centipedes) might cringe a little during the dancers\u2019 transformation dance.<\/p>\n

Another short with strong visuals is Kaleb Lechowski\u2019s \u201cR\u2019ha,\u201d but his story of a captured alien warrior subjected to a tortuous experience is a little too familiar, and suffers from clich\u00e9d dialogue.<\/p>\n

Like prior Packaged Goods<\/strong> programmes, the show ends with a lengthy short: “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.\u201d Directors William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg have crafted a reverent ode to the beauty of books, but amid the high sentimentalism there are some very affable elements, especially the eponymous character who starts off as a Buster Keaton variant. After a Wizard of Oz<\/strong>-style\u00a0hurricane overturns the town, Lessmore helps reassemble the library, and the books are revealed as living \/ flying entities, with a full range of emotions.<\/p>\n

The adverts in Artful Animation <\/strong>vary from chocolates to the gory \u201cWitcher 2: Assassins of Kings\u201d trailer. The BBC\u2019s self-aggrandizing \u201cStadium UK\u201d unsurprisingly over-beats the 2012 Summer Olympics signature theme as animated athletes train and perform in iconic environs across Blighty.<\/p>\n

The best ad among the lot is Australia\u2019s Metro Trains Melbourne. Designed to instill a sense of logic and sane self-preservation, the rudimentary animation depicts several \u201cDumb Ways to Die,\u201d and every misanthropic moron who offed himself \/ herself through sheer acts of stupidity eventually joins fellow morons in the song\u2019s chorus as best as they can. Even a victim who self-ingested Krazy-Glue manages to hobble in time in spite of being permanently frozen stiff. Good lad!<\/p>\n

Coming next<\/em>: soundtrack reviews, and the first of several test footage extracts featuring \u00a0trippy analogue video feedback that’ll form some basis for BSV 1172<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com <\/strong>( Main Site<\/a> \/ Mobile Site<\/a> )<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A taste of the latest entry in the TIFF Bell Lightbox’s fun media series Packaged Goods: Artful Animation, which screens Wed. Feb. 20th, and features a post-screening discussion with Gerald Ding, Creative Director of Psyop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[1857,927,658],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-23v","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7905"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7905\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}