When Japan’s Top Animators Made a Thrilling Cyberpunk Commercial for Irish Beer: Watch Last Orders (1997)

in Animation, Television | January 26th, 2018

When it came out in 1995, Mamoru Oshi­i’s Ghost in the Shell showed the world what the art of Japan­ese ani­ma­tion could do with the kind of grit­ty, tech-sat­u­rat­ed, glob­al­ized cyber­punk visions pop­u­lar­ized in the pre­vi­ous decade by William Gib­son and oth­er writ­ers. The film’s par­tic­u­lar­ly suc­cess­ful release in the Unit­ed King­dom got some cul­tur­al­ly savvy mar­keters in Ire­land think­ing: why not use this sort of thing to sell beer?

But rather than rip­ping it off and water­ing it down — all too par for the course in adver­tis­ing — they hired ani­ma­tors straight from Pro­duc­tion I.G., Ghost in the Shell’s stu­dio, to cre­ate a whole new ani­mat­ed cyber­punk real­i­ty, the one in which Last Orders, the minute-long spot above, takes place. The 1997 com­mer­cial tells the sto­ry of six samu­rai rush­ing through a cityscape that has every­thing we’ve now come to expect from this genre: forests of high-ris­es, bustling streets, mys­te­ri­ous women, arti­fi­cial humanoids, the tech­no­log­i­cal every­where merged with the organ­ic, and neon signs aplen­ty.

The samu­rai con­verge on their des­ti­na­tion, a tav­ern, just in time to silent­ly but firm­ly sig­nal their demand for their drink of choice: Mur­phy’s Irish Stout, a Heineken-dis­trib­uted brew offered as a lighter, less bit­ter alter­na­tive to the mar­ket-dom­i­nat­ing Guin­ness. But no mat­ter of the steely deter­mi­na­tion of the samu­rai in Last Orders, the first ani­me-style com­mer­cial ever to air in the UK and Ire­land, it seems that one chal­lenges such an icon­ic brand at one’s per­il: Mur­phy’s cur­rent­ly has only a five-per­cent share of the Irish stout mar­ket, and that most­ly thanks to a 28-per­cent share in its native Cork.

The Japan­ese ani­ma­tors who worked on the com­mer­cial have fared rather bet­ter, going on to, among many oth­er respect­ed projects, Blood: The Last Vam­pire and Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade. Though I’ve nev­er encoun­tered Mur­phy’s on any tap, I’d glad­ly watch a movie or even an entire series set in its world. The stout mar­ket, the mighty Guin­ness includ­ed, may have been on the decline in recent years, but cyber­punk, in our own ever more glob­al­ized and tech-sat­u­rat­ed real­i­ty, seems about due for a come­back.

via Kotaku

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Phi­los­o­phy, Sto­ry­telling & Visu­al Cre­ativ­i­ty of Ghost in the Shell, the Acclaimed Ani­me Film, Explained in Video Essays

Watch the New Ani­me Pre­quel to Blade Run­ner 2049, by Famed Japan­ese Ani­ma­tor Shinichi­ro Watan­abe

Watch a New Star Wars Ani­ma­tion, Drawn in a Clas­sic 80s Japan­ese Ani­me Style

The Art of Hand-Drawn Japan­ese Ani­me: A Deep Study of How Kat­suhi­ro Otomo’s Aki­ra Uses Light

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Watch Animated Scores to Music by Radiohead, Talking Heads, LCD Soundsystem, Photek & Other Electronic/Post-Punk/Avant-Garde Musicians

in Animation, Music | January 25th, 2018

A few weeks ago, we told you about Stephen Mali­nows­ki and the Music Ani­ma­tion Machine, a pop­u­lar and pret­ty expan­sive YouTube chan­nel that fea­tures scrolling, col­or-coor­di­nat­ed ani­mat­ed “scores” for clas­si­cal works from Debussy to Bach and Stravin­sky.

But what if there was a ver­sion of this, some­where some­how, for elec­tron­ic music?

Ask the ques­tion of the Inter­net, dear read­er, and the gods will pro­vide. For just over a year motion graph­ics design­er Johannes Lam­pert has been work­ing in a sim­i­lar style to inter­pret the work of elec­tron­ic, post-punk, and mod­ern com­posers like Steve Reich and Arvo Pärt in which every sound is rep­re­sent­ed by a dif­fer­ent ani­mat­ed sym­bol.

In the above video, Lam­pert takes on Talk­ing Heads’ mul­ti­lay­ered, Fela Kuti-inspired “The Great Curve” from Remain in Light. The video gives us jagged lines for Tina Weymouth’s bass, a steady bor­der of dots for Chris Frantz’ propul­sive drum tracks, and sev­er­al gaps into which the three vocal lines of the song—David Byrne’s lead, and Nona Hendryx and the band’s mul­ti­tracked call-and-response back­ing vocals—drop and pulse. Add to that an unbro­ken jagged line that repli­cates Adri­an Belew’s sear­ing and soar­ing solo.

Cur­rent­ly there are 12 tracks avail­able on Anato­my of a Track’s Youtube chan­nel, with a post­ing record that sug­gests Johannes Lam­pert is work­ing on one every two months.

Lam­pert exper­i­ments with the lay­out and graph­ics of his ani­ma­tions, mak­ing their design com­ple­ment the music. Hence “The Great Curve” look­ing like African tex­tiles, Gil-Scott Heron’s “New York Is Killing Me” aping the New York Sub­way map, and Photek’s “The Rain” as a pud­dle filled with puls­ing rain­drops.

Maybe the most com­plex video so far is for Radiohead’s “Bloom,” which is just as chaot­ic as the band’s tum­bling drum machine. But it does uncov­er how steady the bass is in this track while all around the oth­er instru­ments are shim­mer­ing and ethe­re­al. And for just a good time, Justice’s “Phan­tom” is turned into a dynam­ic light show that looks like a night dri­ve down a Japan­ese express­way.

I would put it to you that mod­ern elec­tron­ic artists think about their music much like these ani­ma­tions. I mean, what are music edit­ing pro­grams like Pro­Tools or Log­ic Pro but hor­i­zon­tal scrolls of dots and sound waves?

No doubt Lam­pert has more tricks up his sleeve and more tracks to ani­mate. Stay tuned.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Clas­si­cal Music Come to Life in Art­ful­ly Ani­mat­ed Scores: Stravin­sky, Debussy, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart & More

Opti­cal Poems by Oskar Fischinger, the Avant-Garde Ani­ma­tor Hat­ed by Hitler, Dissed by Dis­ney

Watch Clas­si­cal Music Get Per­fect­ly Visu­al­ized as an Emo­tion­al Roller Coast­er Ride

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the artist inter­view-based FunkZone Pod­cast and is the pro­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.

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Celebrate the Women’s March with 24 Goddess GIFs Created by Animator Nina Paley: They’re Free to Download and Remix

in Animation, Art, Life, Religion | January 19th, 2018

As mil­lions of women, men, and friends beyond the bina­ry gear up for Wom­en’s March events around the world this week­end, we can’t help but draw strength from the Venus of Wil­len­dorf in Graph­ics Inter­change For­mat, above.

Like the pussy hats that became the most vis­i­ble sym­bol of last year’s march, there’s a strong ele­ment of humor at play here.

Also respect for the female form.

As Dr. Bryan Zyg­mont notes in his Khan Acad­e­my essay on the Venus of Wil­len­dorf, her exis­tence is evi­dence that “nomadic peo­ple liv­ing almost 25,000 years ago cared about mak­ing objects beau­ti­ful. And … that these Pale­olith­ic peo­ple had an aware­ness of the impor­tance of the women.”

Ani­ma­tor Nina Paley has tak­en up our Pale­olith­ic ances­tors’ baton by cre­at­ing two dozen ear­ly god­dess GIFs, includ­ing the Venus.

As fur­ther proof that sis­ter­hood is pow­er­ful, Paley is shar­ing her unashamed­ly boun­cy pan­theon with the pub­lic. Vis­it her blog to down­load all 24 indi­vid­ual god­dess GIFs. Dis­sem­i­nate them wide­ly. Use them for good! No per­mis­sion need­ed.

Paley is no stranger to god­dess­es, hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly placed the divine hero­ine of the Ramayana front and cen­ter in her semi-auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal fea­ture length ani­ma­tion, Sita Sings the Blues.

She’s also incred­i­bly famil­iar with rights issues, fol­low­ing mas­sive com­pli­ca­tions with some vin­tage record­ings her Bet­ty Boop-ish Sita lip-synchs in the film. (She had pre­vi­ous­ly believed them to be in the pub­lic domain.) Unable to pay the huge sum the copy­right hold­ers demand­ed to license the tunes, Paley ulti­mate­ly decid­ed to relin­quish all legal claims to her own film, plac­ing Sita Sings the Blues in the pub­lic domain, to be freely shared, exhib­it­ed, or even remixed.

If Paley’s the poster child for copy­right issues she’s also a shin­ing exam­ple of deriv­ing pow­er from unlike­ly sources.

As she wrote on her web­site near­ly ten years ago:

My per­son­al expe­ri­ence con­firms audi­ences are gen­er­ous and want to sup­port artists. Sure­ly there’s a way for this to hap­pen with­out cen­tral­ly con­trol­ling every trans­ac­tion. The old busi­ness mod­el of coer­cion and extor­tion is fail­ing. New mod­els are emerg­ing, and I’m hap­py to be part of that. But we’re still mak­ing this up as we go along. You are free to make mon­ey with the free con­tent of Sita Sings the Blues, and you are free to share mon­ey with me. Peo­ple have been mak­ing mon­ey in Free Soft­ware for years; it’s time for Free Cul­ture to fol­low. I look for­ward to your inno­va­tions.

As for Paley’s own plans for her god­dess­es, they’ll be a part of her upcom­ing ani­mat­ed musi­cal, Seder-Masochism, not­ing that “all ear­ly peo­ples con­ceived the divine as female.”

Down­load Nina Paley’s God­dess GIFs here. Watch Sita Sings the Blues here. March ever onward!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

3D Scans of 7,500 Famous Sculp­tures, Stat­ues & Art­works: Down­load & 3D Print Rodin’s Thinker, Michelangelo’s David & More

How Ancient Greek Stat­ues Real­ly Looked: Research Reveals their Bold, Bright Col­ors and Pat­terns

The God­dess: A Clas­sic from the Gold­en Age of Chi­nese Cin­e­ma, Star­ring the Silent Film Icon Ruan Lingyu (1934)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Join her on Feb­ru­ary 8 for Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain, when a host of New York City-based per­form­ers and musi­cians will res­ur­rect  a long for­got­ten work from 1911 as a low bud­get, vari­ety show. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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The History of the World in One Video: Every Year from 200,000 BCE to Today

in Animation, History, Maps | January 11th, 2018

“Where are you from?” a char­ac­ter at one point asks Babe, the hap­less pro­tag­o­nist of the Fire­sign The­atre’s clas­sic com­e­dy album How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You’re Not Any­where at All. “Nairo­bi, ma’am,” Babe replies. “Isn’t every­body?” Like most of that psy­che­del­ic radio troupe’s pieces of appar­ent non­sense, that mem­o­rable line con­tains a truth: trace human his­to­ry back far enough and you inevitably end up in east Africa, a point illus­trat­ed in reverse by the video above, “A His­to­ry of the World: Every Year,” which traces the march of human­i­ty between 200,000 BCE and the mod­ern day.

To a dra­mat­ic sound­track which opens and clos­es with the music of Hans Zim­mer, video cre­ator Ollie Bye charts mankind’s progress out of Africa and, ulti­mate­ly, into every cor­ner of all the con­ti­nents of the world.

Real, doc­u­ment­ed set­tle­ments, cities, empires, and entire civ­i­liza­tions rise and fall as they would in a com­put­er game, with a con­stant­ly updat­ed glob­al pop­u­la­tion count and list of the civ­i­liza­tions active in the cur­rent year as well as occa­sion­al notes about pol­i­tics and diplo­ma­cy, soci­ety and cul­ture, and inven­tions and dis­cov­er­ies.

All that hap­pens in under 20 min­utes, a pret­ty swift clip, though not until the very end does the world take the polit­i­cal shape we know today, includ­ing even the late late­com­er to civ­i­liza­tion that is the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca. Bye’s many oth­er videos tend to focus on the his­to­ry of oth­er parts of the world, such as India, the British Isles, and that cra­dle of our species, the African con­ti­nent, all of which we can now devel­op first-hand famil­iar­i­ty with in this age of unprece­dent­ed human mobil­i­ty. Though the con­di­tion itself takes the ques­tion “Where are you from?” to a degree of com­pli­ca­tion unknown not only mil­len­nia but also cen­turies and even decades ago, at least now you have a snap­py answer at the ready.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The His­to­ry of Civ­i­liza­tion Mapped in 13 Min­utes: 5000 BC to 2014 AD

Take Big His­to­ry: A Free Short Course on 13.8 Bil­lion Years of His­to­ry, Fund­ed by Bill Gates

The His­to­ry of the World in 46 Lec­tures From Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty

The His­to­ry of the World in 20 Odd Min­utes

A Crash Course in World His­to­ry

5‑Minute Ani­ma­tion Maps 2,600 Years of West­ern Cul­tur­al His­to­ry

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Spheres Dance to the Music of Bach, Performed by Glenn Gould: An Animation from 1969

in Animation | January 9th, 2018

From Nor­man McLaren and René Jodoin comes a 1969 short ani­ma­tion called “Spheres.” Here, you can watch “spheres of translu­cent pearl float weight­less­ly in the unlim­it­ed panora­ma of the sky, group­ing, regroup­ing or col­lid­ing like the styl­ized burst of some atom­ic chain reac­tion.” All the while, “the dance is set to the musi­cal cadences of Bach, played by pianist Glenn Gould.” A per­fect com­bi­na­tion.

This film par­tic­i­pates in a long tra­di­tion of ani­ma­tions explor­ing geom­e­try, some of which you can find in the Relat­eds right below.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The First Avant Garde Ani­ma­tion: Watch Wal­ter Ruttmann’s Licht­spiel Opus 1 (1921)

Chuck Jones’ The Dot and the Line Cel­e­brates Geom­e­try & Hard Work: An Oscar-Win­ning Ani­ma­tion (1965)

Jour­ney to the Cen­ter of a Tri­an­gle: Watch the 1977 Dig­i­tal Ani­ma­tion That Demys­ti­fies Geom­e­try

Watch “Geom­e­try of Cir­cles,” the Abstract Sesame Street Ani­ma­tion Scored by Philip Glass (1979)

 

 

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The Movements of a Symphony Conductor Get Artistically Visualized in an Avant-Garde Motion Capture Animation

in Animation, Computer Science, Film, Music, Technology | January 5th, 2018

Some clas­si­cal music enthu­si­asts are purists with regard to visu­al effects, lis­ten­ing with eyes firm­ly fixed on lin­er notes or the ceil­ings of grand con­cert halls.

Those open to a more avant-garde ocu­lar expe­ri­ence may enjoy the short motion cap­ture ani­ma­tion above.

Moti­vat­ed by the Lon­don Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra’s desire for a hip­per iden­ti­ty, the project hinged on recent­ly appoint­ed Musi­cal Direc­tor Sir Simon Rat­tle’s will­ing­ness to con­duct Edward Elgar’s Enig­ma Vari­a­tions with a spe­cial­ly mod­i­fied baton, while 12 top-of-the-range Vicon Van­tage cam­eras not­ed his every move at 120 frames per sec­ond.

Dig­i­tal design­er Tobias Gremm­ler, who’s pre­vi­ous­ly used motion-cap­ture ani­ma­tion as a lens through which to con­sid­er kung fu and Chi­nese Opera, stuck with musi­cal metaphors in ani­mat­ing Sir Simon’s data with Cin­e­ma 4D soft­ware. The move­ments of con­duc­tor and baton morph into a “vor­tex of wood, brass, smoke and strings” and “wires rem­i­nis­cent of the strings of the instru­ments them­selves.” Else­where, he draws on the atmos­phere and archi­tec­ture of clas­sic con­cert halls.

(The unini­ti­at­ed may find them­selves flash­ing on less rar­i­fied sources of inspi­ra­tion, from lava lamps and fire danc­ing to the 80’s‑era dig­i­tal uni­verse of Tron.)

via Atlas Obscu­ra

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Grace­ful Move­ments of Kung Fu & Mod­ern Dance Revealed in Stun­ning Motion Visu­al­iza­tions

Visu­al­iz­ing WiFi Sig­nals with Light

The Entire Dis­ci­pline of Phi­los­o­phy Visu­al­ized with Map­ping Soft­ware: See All of the Com­plex Net­works

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Where Are They Now? An Animated Mockumentary Reveals What Happened to Your Favorite 1980s Cartoon Characters After Their Heyday

in Animation, Comics/Cartoons, Life | December 29th, 2017

It’s a cau­tion­ary tale about what hap­pens when the world you pre­pared your­self for changes and leaves you behind. Cold­ly, and some­times with­out warn­ing.

Above, watch Steve Cutts’ 2014 ani­mat­ed mock­u­men­tary, “Where Are They Now?”. Star­ring Roger and Jes­si­ca Rab­bit, and fea­tur­ing cameos by Garfield and The Smurfs, the short film revis­its car­toon char­ac­ters who had it all in the 1980s. Then hit the skids in the ear­ly 90s. Hard. “We had done our jobs,” says an aged Jes­si­ca Rab­bit. “Now we were for­got­ten about. Obso­lete.” It’s a bleak pic­ture that Cutts paints. But, it’s not all bad. He-Man became a wealthy lin­gerie design­er. We could all use a well-thought-out Plan B.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Look Inside Mel Blanc’s Throat as He Per­forms the Voic­es of Bugs Bun­ny and Oth­er Car­toon Leg­ends

Chuck Jones’ 9 Rules For Draw­ing Road Run­ner Car­toons, or How to Cre­ate a Min­i­mal­ist Mas­ter­piece

The Long Game of Cre­ativ­i­ty: If You Haven’t Cre­at­ed a Mas­ter­piece at 30, You’re Not a Fail­ure

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An Innocent Christmas Typo Causes Sir Patrick Stewart to Star as Satan In This Animated Holiday Short

in Animation, Comedy, Film, Theatre | December 25th, 2017

In cer­tain sec­tors, over-the-top ad agency greet­ings are as much a part of the hol­i­day sea­son as A Christ­mas Car­ol and How the Grinch Stole Christ­mas!.

Anom­aly Lon­don put in their thumb and pulled out a plum when Sir Patrick Stew­art agreed to voice their lat­est effort, above.

And what bet­ter way to top his cel­e­brat­ed turn as Ebe­neez­er Scrooge than by tack­ling the most Christmas‑y role of them all?

San­ta, is that you?

No, dear child, ’tis Satan, sum­moned by an inno­cent mis-spelling on the part of a young girl eager for a Christ­mas pup­py.

When the post office deliv­ers her sim­i­lar­ly mis­ad­dressed enve­lope to hell by Decem­ber 25, the buff and tat­tooed Lord of Dark­ness’ heart grows three sizes. Every­one likes to be told they’re spe­cial.

Next thing you know, he’s trad­ed the fiery fur­nace for a gluten-free bak­ery in Shored­itch, where he’s a hap­py team play­er, mak­ing lat­te art and wear­ing a goofy cap.

The end­ing is a sweet mix of “I hate you, you ruined Christ­mas, go to hell!” and “God bless us every­one.” San­ta doesn’t sur­vive, but the child­like capac­i­ty for won­der does.

Those with sen­si­tive stom­achs may want to go easy on the eggnog while watch­ing this soon-to-be-hol­i­day clas­sic. The pro­jec­tile vom­it­ing rivals the Exor­cist’s.

And hap­py hol­i­days from all of us at Open Cul­ture!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear The Cin­na­mon Bear, the Clas­sic Hol­i­day Radio Series That Has Aired Between Thanks­giv­ing and Christ­mas for 80 Years

Hear Paul McCartney’s Exper­i­men­tal Christ­mas Mix­tape: A Rare & For­got­ten Record­ing from 1965

Sir Patrick Stew­art & Sir Ian McK­ellen Play The New­ly­wed Game

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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