Blu Evolutions

September 21, 2007 1:07 PM

Fantoche is another real-world cel animation from the creator of Walking, blu. [blog, work]
His other (more traditional) animations are likewise imaginatively evolutionary.
posted by carsonb (21 comments total)

Holy crap--amazing.
posted by Turtles all the way down at 1:11 PM on September 21, 2007

OK NO
posted by carsonb at 1:35 PM on September 21, 2007

Apologies, the above link features crudely animated nudity, perhaps NSFW.
posted by carsonb at 1:36 PM on September 21, 2007

This doesn't look like it was made with cels. Are you sure it was?
posted by aubilenon at 1:50 PM on September 21, 2007

aubilenon, what carsonb means is "hand drawn stop motion pictures in the same style as cel animation but using objects from the real world."
posted by jonson at 1:52 PM on September 21, 2007

This guy is fantastic.
posted by Mister_A at 1:55 PM on September 21, 2007

Yeah, what he said. Thanks, jonson.
posted by carsonb at 1:57 PM on September 21, 2007

Love blu's work! wow.

Here's a cool one at zooo.org of a man's ribs as a kind of jail.
posted by nickyskye at 2:38 PM on September 21, 2007

I thought "walking" was cool, but IMO fantoche blows it out of the water.
posted by juv3nal at 2:43 PM on September 21, 2007

On the blog I found a time-lapse video of a huge work going up on the side of a building. Fascinating.
posted by carsonb at 2:48 PM on September 21, 2007

awesome!!! thanks.
posted by taliaferro at 2:49 PM on September 21, 2007

I really like this one, I woz ere. It's similar, but the guy paints over the art as he goes.

PS: If anyone knows the name of that song I've been trying to find it forever.
posted by Democritus at 3:26 PM on September 21, 2007

one of my favorite blu pieces:

http://flickr.com/photos/kersavond/1353355603/
posted by Espoo2 at 3:33 PM on September 21, 2007

owes a lot to the creator of the original and best Walking, Ryan.
posted by scruss at 4:34 PM on September 21, 2007

You know, I thought Fantoche was pretty fucking amazing.

Then the guy started eating the paper.

BLU HAS BLOWN MY MIND.

For serious. Fucking awesome.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 4:45 PM on September 21, 2007

This is pretty cool. The first thing I thought of was La Linea.
posted by Sailormom at 4:48 PM on September 21, 2007

I agree, totally awesome. The use of space, walls and perspective totally made it for me.
posted by meinvt at 5:28 PM on September 21, 2007

I happened to watch this with Bela Fleck's "Shanti" playing in the background, from Radio Paradise, and it was eerie how well it suited. It even ended within 1 or 2 seconds of the video, though I'm not sure how the relative starts were arranged.

It was so good that for a minute I thought I had gotten confused, and that it really was the Youtube soundtrack, not the station.
posted by Malor at 6:32 PM on September 21, 2007

Democritus the first song is Organ Donor by DJ Shadow, I don't know the other ones though...
posted by cloeburner at 6:32 PM on September 21, 2007

This stuff looks a lot like the work of the great South African artist William Kentridge. Kentridge makes animated films (mostly poetic and disturbing stories about the apartheid history of his country) by repeatedly drawing, erasing, and redrawing with charcoal on large sheets of paper. He became known starting in 1989 with a film about Johannesburg.

Read more on his wikipedia page. I looked around for videos of some of the films, but the best I seem to be able to find is this Portugese TV report it's got some clips that demonstrate the technique pretty well and some interesting discussion with Kentridge about his technique and subject matter.
posted by AtDuskGreg at 1:24 PM on September 22, 2007

On closer inspection, I notice that the video I linked to above is, in fact, a preview for a documentary about Kentridge and not a TV report. Also, I found this GooTube version of Kentridge's Journey to the Moon, his play on the early cinema classic, Melies' Voyage dans la lune. It's a little atypical (not being about South Africa), but shows off some of his technique and playfulness.
posted by AtDuskGreg at 1:35 PM on September 22, 2007