“The Rake’s Song” by The Decemberists (2009)

“The Decemberists have been a crescendo since their first album, a snowball of sound and fury. This song is the savage crab at their current high water mark. It is LOUD. Listen to it LOUDER. Verily, this is folk rock.”

3liza

 

A stunning animated video for The Rake’s Song by The Decemberists, The Rake’s Song has been made by St.Martins College Of Art students. It was created and directed in Moscow, by Alex Dashino and Varvara Volodina. Alex and Varvara are second year students studying Moving Image at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, London. “Any video referencing Baba Yaga, that lovable Russian folktale mainstay, is A+ in my book” Colin Meloy”

Neighbours by Norman Mclaren (1952)

“I was inspired to make Neighbours by a stay of almost a year in the People’s Republic of China. Although I only saw the beginnings of Mao’s revolution, my faith in human nature was reinvigorated by it. Then I came back to Quebec and the Korean War began. (…) I decided to make a really strong film about anti-militarism and against war.”

NM

NFB

“The term ‘pixilation‘ was created by Grant Munro, who had worked with McLaren on Two Bagatelles, a pair of short pixilation films made prior to Neighbours. While Neighbours is often credited as an animated film by many film historians, very little of the film is actually animated. The majority of the film is shot with variable-speed photography, usually in fast motion, with some stop-frame techniques. During one brief sequence, the two actors appear to levitate: this effect was actually achieved in stop-motion; the men repeatedly jumped upward but were photographed only at the top of their trajectories. Under the current definition of an animated short, it is unlikely that Neighbours would qualify as either a documentary short or an animated short.”

See also: Pen Point Percussion