Brilliant "Bullying" animation

"Balance": brilliant stop motion animation by Wolfgang and Christoph Lauenstein won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short (1989).
One of my all time favorites. Says it all without any dialog whatsoever.
All about bullying and greed. Seem familiar to some of our current political leaders?

Female animator: Meghan Lands

Nice feature on Motionographer about being female in the very male dominated field of animation:
Meghan Lands is an animator in Montreal, Canada.

“In all honesty, I think being a woman in the world is inherently political, and being a woman in this industry is inherently subversive. And every day you get up and do that, you’re a champion.”

from the article:

A survival strategy

Firstly, although she admitted to being exposed to the “garden variety misogyny” and microaggressions in her daily life such as inappropriate sexist jokes and comments, she also pointed out that in real life, there is no black and white.

Often, the same people who are being misogynistic can also be kind and helpful to her. With that in mind, she’s chosen not to engage any of them in deeper conversation on equality and political correctness.

“Being a constant advocate for yourself, let alone for anything bigger than yourself is exhausting,” she said. Alluding to how difficult it is to convince someone that an issue they’re not familiar with or interested in is important, Meghan summed it like this: “If you’d wanted to know, you would have already asked.”

At the same time, Meghan admits that in her life and career, people often don’t take her seriously, something she attributes to her physical appearance.

“I’m short, I’m a woman,” she said. “I have the voice of a small child. So I am often underestimated, shall we say.”

Animating Anthropomorphism

In 1944, Smith College experimental psychologists Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel conducted an experiment in which they showed female undergraduate students to "write down what happened" in the movie above."

What do you see in this animation?

From Scientific American:

"Most of the thirty four subjects interpreted the shapes in the movie as animate characters. Thirty two described them as people, and two described the shapes as birds. The experimenters provide an example of a common interpretation:

A man has planned to meet a girl and the girl comes along with another man. The first man tells the second to go; the second tells the first, and he shakes his head. Then the two men have a fight, and the girl starts to go into the room to get out of the way and hesitates and finally goes in. She apparently does not want to be with the first man. The first man follows her into the room after having left the second in a rather weakened condition leaning on the wall outside the room. The girl gets worried and races from one corner to the other in the far part of the room. Man number one, after being rather silent for a while, makes several approaches at her; but she gets to the corner across from the door, just as man number two is trying to open it. He evidently got banged around and is still weak from his efforts to open the door. The girl gets out of the room in a sudden dash just as man number two gets the door open. The two chase around the outside of the room together, followed by man number one. But they finally elude him and get away. The first man goes back and tries to open his door, but he is so blinded by rage and frustration that he can not open it. So he butts it open and in a really mad dash around the room he breaks in first one wall and then another.

There were some common themes. For example, nearly every subject described the interaction between the big triangle and the small triangle as a fight. Most described the big triangle being locked in the "house." The interaction between the big triangle and the circle was usually described as a chase. And the "door" was almost always controlled by the shapes; the shapes were never moved by the door."

Ted-Ed Lessons rely on animations

TED-ED is seeking animators, illustrators, artists.  Use YOUR animation talents to produce Ted-Ed originals.

From their website:

"TED-Ed’s mission is to spark and celebrate the ideas of teachers and students around the world. Everything we do supports learning — from producing a growing library of original animated videos, to providing an international platform for teachers..."

What are TED-Ed Lessons?

"TED-Ed Originals are our signature content: short, award-winning animated videos about ideas that spark the curiosity of learners everywhere. Every TED-Ed Original represents a creative collaboration between experts. Such experts may include TED Speakers and TED Fellows, as well as educators, designers, animators, screenwriters, directors, science writers, historians, journalists and editors. These original animated videos, paired with questions and resources, make up what we refer to as TED-Ed Lessons."

Check it out. A sample:

Persistence of Vision explained

Ted Ed shows historical pre-cinema devices and nice examples of animated movement from still images. Like magic.

"Explainer Videos": automated

Explainer Videos are, well, what they sound like they are.  A recent trend in web content, these animated, live action, motion graphic shorts (under 2 minutes) pack a quick punch for corporations and organizations, or even individuals trying to fund their projects (you can't do a Kickstarter without one)  It seems that everyone needs one these days (potentially good motion graphic work if you can get it) and this company promises to automate the creation of one with drag and drop animated elements. Why hire real artists when you can use clipart animations? :)



Examples of Explainer videos are here:

"The Story of Stuff" was probably one of the earlier "explainer" videos with real integrity. Here's their most recent one: "The Story of Change"--applicable to today's political climate.




And here's one that has NO voiceover.  Just images.  Refreshing.