Here’s a really imaginative short film called AT-AT day afternoon, created by Canadian filmmaker Patrick Boivin. Boivin took a vintage Star Wars Walker toy and transformed it into man’s best friend. The film was created using a blend of stop-motion animation, puppetry, and clever household green screens that aren’t always green. Boivin, who is self-trained in filmmaking and effects, said in an interview that he shoots primarily with a Canon 5D Mark II.

Check out the behind-the-scenes video below. Read more…

While this isn’t exactly photo-related, a good number of our readers own iPhones and might appreciate this cheeky Taiwanese news rendition of the iPhone 4 “antennagate” situation that has been dominating tech news this past week. The animation was made by Next Media Animation, a company dedicated to making “the most dramatic” animations about current events and news.

It’s amazing what simple photography and tons of time and dedication can produce. This stop motion video was created using 25,000 pieces of paper and a 10 foot wall.

Our “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day” story unfolds through thousands of individual photos featuring Walt Disney World Cast Members moving sticky notes around by hand – no video cameras were used. Also, there were no post-production “tricks” used to create the giant sticky note Mickey Mouse, the background or to “animate” the pieces of paper. See for yourself.

Also, keep your eye out for the photographer behind the camera making a cameo appearance.

‘Mickey Notes’ – Disney Parks Celebrates Volunteering (via Boing Boing)

Freezelight is a Russian group that creates light painting photographs and animations. They have a pretty interesting blog showcasing their work, and opened up a Vimeo account a few days ago to showcase their films.

The above animation is titled “Freezelight Magic Forest“, and consists of roughly 300 photographs shot with a Canon 5D Mark II, EF 50/1.4, and EF 24-70/2.8. They also have a pretty interesting behind-the-scenes video showing the creation of a light painting animation.

This would have surely been included in our 13 creative light painting animations post a couple weeks ago had they been online then.

(via Gizmodo)

Here’s a dose of creative inspiration: a hand animated video of parkour. Created by Serene Teh and Noel Lee, parkour motion reel is a pretty unique take on the flip book style of animation.

While this video isn’t directly related to photography, the concept can definitely be done with photographs instead of being hand-drawn, and might make for some pretty awesome animation. Photographs have already been used in this kind of animation, but usually using stop motion (i.e. The PEN Story and stop motion with wolf and pig.)

If you have any examples of photographs being animated by hand in this manner, please link us!

(via Laughing Squid)

Animated films have had enjoyed increased exposure on the big screen this year. Films like Pixar’s Up, Miyazaki’s Ponyo, and Ari Folman’s animated documentary, Waltz with Bashir,  have received widespread critical acclaim, demonstrating that while animated films can be family-friendly, they are at their core a dynamic and imaginative medium with impressive potential.

Two major animated films this year, Henry Selick’s 3D film, Coraline, and Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, utilize an old animating technique that has been used for nearly a century: stop-motion.

According to the IMDB websites of both films, the individual frames of Coraline and Fantastic Mr. Fox were captured with Nikon DSLRs: the Nikon D80 and D3, respectively, along with a variety of other lenses, bodies, and equipment. Additionally, several Canon bodies can be spotted in a Wired.com video feature on Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Producer Jeremy Dawson notes how differently the film was produced because it was on a digital medium: instead of director Wes Anderson being present during the entire filming process, captured photographs could be remotely accessed and viewed for his approval, no matter where he was physically. The final film consists of 5,229 shots, 621,450 frames, an average of 120 gigabytes of data was captured per day, and the total storage for the images took up 18.5 terabytes of space.

Coraline also seems to have its share of behind-the-scenes camera aficionados; the titular character can be seen in one scene using a Leica camera.

Both films are visually captivating. Coraline director Selick does not stray far from the styles of his previous animated masterpieces, James and the Giant Peach and The Nightmare Before Christmas. Director Wes Anderson’s trademark vintage color palette also stays consistently impressive.

The behind the scenes featurettes of the films are worth a watch as well, and provide some interesting insight into the tedious effort and tremendous amount of time put into making these gorgeous motion pictures.

The Making of Coraline

Behind the Scenes of Fantastic Mr. Fox