Watch “Bottle,” an Award-Winning Stop Motion Animated Tale of Transoceanic Correspondence

in Animation, K-12, Life | April 29th, 2014

When I was in high school, my boyfriend showed me a film he had shot with his dad’s Super 8. It fea­tured a pair of golf clubs escap­ing from the garage and hus­tling down the dri­ve­way. I was bedaz­zled by his tech­nique, and amazed that that’s how he spent his week­ends before he met me.

I thought of those films the oth­er day on a tour of Cal Arts with a prospec­tive stu­dent. As part of ori­en­ta­tion, our group was shown “Bot­tle,” an award-win­ning stop motion short cre­at­ed when writer-direc­tor Kirsten Lep­ore was a grad stu­dent in the exper­i­men­tal ani­ma­tion pro­gram. 

In the minute or so it took our guide to remem­ber how to turn the sound on, I was actu­al­ly dread­ing it. I like nar­ra­tive. Fun­ny. Made­line Sharafi­an’s flat ani­ma­tion “Omelette,” which we were shown before “Bot­tle” as rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the sort of work going on in the famed Char­ac­ter Ani­ma­tion depart­ment, deliv­ered on both counts.

Exper­i­men­tal, though? I pic­tured a Dali-esque com­put­er gen­er­at­ed land­scaped star­ring an anony­mous ball, and longed for Scot­t’s dad’s golf clubs. They had so much per­son­al­i­ty.

I am delight­ed to report that those clubs could­n’t hold a can­dle to the cast you will meet above. I don’t want to spoil any sur­pris­es. Suf­fice it to say that the fin­ished prod­uct involves sand, snow, the ocean, flot­sam, jet­sam, a bot­tle, many miles, and many, many hours of labor. If that, com­bined with an utter­ly charm­ing sto­ry­line, adds up to exper­i­men­tal, then I am all for exper­i­men­ta­tion. My kid was ready to change her major after see­ing it, but maybe I am the one who needs to attend.

Watch the mak­ing of video below to get a feel for the sort of wringer Lep­ore put her­self and her crew through. Obvi­ous­ly not a week­end project.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hard­er Than It Looks: How to Make a Great Stop Motion Ani­ma­tion

Big Bang Big Boom: Graf­fi­ti Stop-Motion Ani­ma­tion Cre­ative­ly Depicts the Evo­lu­tion of Life

Watch The New Amer­i­ca, a Stop Motion Ani­ma­tion Star­ring 800+ Laser Engraved Wood Blocks

Ayun Hal­l­i­day’s golf clubs nev­er stopped run­ning. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Curious Alice — The 1971 Anti-Drug Movie Based on Alice in Wonderland That Made Drugs Look Like Fun

in Animation, Film | April 24th, 2014

The Rea­gan pres­i­den­cy was prob­a­bly the gold­en age of anti-drug mes­sag­ing. America’s school kids were told that a brain was like an egg and drugs were like a fry­ing pan. The First Lady told America’s school kids sim­ply to “Just Say No.” The mes­sage was stu­pe­fy­ing­ly sim­ple. Drugs, like Com­mu­nism and tax­es, are bad.

Dur­ing the ear­ly 1970s, how­ev­er, that anti-drug mes­sage was much more con­fused. Take for exam­ple Curi­ous Alice, a visu­al­ly stun­ning, deeply odd movie about the per­ils of drug abuse that makes the stuff look like a lot of fun. Cre­at­ed by the Nation­al Insti­tute of Men­tal Health in 1971, the film shows young Alice read­ing Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Won­der­land in a sun­ny dap­pled mead­ow before nod­ding off. She soon finds her­self plung­ing down the rab­bit hole and in a won­der­land … of drugs. The King of Hearts is hawk­ing hero­in. The Mad Hat­ter is trip­ping balls on LSD. The hookah-smok­ing Cater­pil­lar is stoned out of his gourd. The Dor­mouse is in a bar­bi­tu­rate-induced stu­por and the March Hare, who looks like the Trix Bunny’s ne’er-do-well broth­er, is a fid­get­ing tweak­er. “You ough­ta have some pep pills! Uppers!” he exclaims. “Amphet­a­mines! Speed! You feel super good.”

The movie was report­ed­ly intend­ed for eight year-olds. While it’s unlike­ly that your aver­age third grad­er is going to absorb Alice’s mor­al­iz­ing about acid, they will almost cer­tain­ly respond to the film’s trip­py, Mon­ty Pythonesque ani­ma­tion. The ani­ma­tors clear­ly had a blast mak­ing this movie, but their efforts didn’t exact­ly trans­late into an effec­tive mes­sage. After the movie came out, the Nation­al Coor­di­nat­ing Coun­cil on Drug Edu­ca­tion slammed the movie, call­ing it con­fus­ing and coun­ter­pro­duc­tive.

As an adult, how­ev­er, the movie is a lot of fun. So check it out above. And if you live in either Col­orado or Wash­ing­ton, feel free to enjoy the movie in a state that it is prob­a­bly best appre­ci­at­ed.

via Dan­ger­ous Minds

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Reefer Mad­ness, 1936′s Most Unin­ten­tion­al­ly Hilar­i­ous “Anti-Drug” Exploita­tion Film, Free Online

Artist Draws Nine Por­traits on LSD Dur­ing 1950s Research Exper­i­ment

Alice in Won­der­land: The Orig­i­nal 1903 Film Adap­ta­tion

See The Orig­i­nal Alice In Won­der­land Man­u­script, Hand­writ­ten & Illus­trat­ed By Lewis Car­roll (1864)

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow.

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Animated Video: Johnny Cash Explains Why Music Became a Religious Calling

in Animation, Music | April 9th, 2014

Blank on Blank is back with anoth­er ani­mat­ed video. This one ani­mates a long lost inter­view with the great John­ny Cash. Inter­viewed by Bar­ney Hoskyns back in 1996, Cash talked about music as a reli­gious call­ing. Play­ing music was akin to preach­ing the gospel, and he knew he’d con­tin­ue mak­ing music until his final days. Should we be sur­prised then, that sev­en years lat­er, Cash com­plet­ed more than 60 songs dur­ing the last four months of his life? He died with his boots on indeed.

Below we’ve high­light­ed for you some great John­ny Cash mate­r­i­al from our archive.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The First Episode of The John­ny Cash Show, Fea­tur­ing Bob Dylan & Joni Mitchell (1969)

The 1969 Bob Dylan-John­ny Cash Ses­sions: Twelve Rare Record­ings

John­ny Cash Sings “Man in Black” for the First Time, 1971

Two Prison Con­certs That Defined an Out­law Singer: John­ny Cash at San Quentin and Fol­som (1968–69)

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Watch the Funky, Oscar-Winning Animated Film Featuring the Music of Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass (1966)

in Animation, Comedy, Music | April 3rd, 2014

The first part of this 1966 Oscar win­ning ani­mat­ed short is so utter­ly charm­ing, I’m sur­prised it has­n’t spawned a con­tem­po­rary remake. The theme—a brave lit­tle flea going up against greedy devel­op­ers who are trans­form­ing his rus­tic home­land into a high rise vaca­tion par­adise for cig­ar-chomp­ing high rollers and their stacked molls—sounds like the sort of thing that might appeal to Dream­works.

Of course, we’d need to flesh out the char­ac­ters if we’re shoot­ing for fea­ture length. Give that sham­bling don­key and plump-bot­tomed hen some wise­crack­ing atti­tude, and maybe some mir­rored shades. I’m think­ing some­thing in the Chris Rock/Whoopie Goldberg/Nathan Lane-type vein. Get a kid to voice the flea. Does­n’t mat­ter who, as long as he’s relat­able and bland. Who’s that kid with the hair?

Obvi­ous­ly, we’re talk­ing 3D CGI. If we thought we could sell the kid­dies on a retro 20th-cen­tu­ry vibe, we’d bring in Wes Ander­son or Tim Bur­ton. They’re sort of into that creepy stop motion  deal, right?

Speak­ing of retro, we could maybe hang onto a bit of the “Span­ish Flea” thing out of respect and because of the char­ac­ter being a flea and all. I’m think­ing maybe a hip hop remix as the cred­its roll? Find out if that kid with the hair raps. I for­get what he’s famous for…

Enough!

The orig­i­nal is absolute­ly per­fect as is, funky and fun­ny, with loads of loose‑y goose‑y per­son­al­i­ty. Like the Herb Alpert and the Tijua­na Brass sound that dri­ves it, it’s both kid-friend­ly and a bit adult. (If that gyrat­ing chang­ing cabana puts you in mind of the Dat­ing Game, it’s like­ly more than the “Span­ish Flea”/“Bachelor’s Theme” con­nec­tion. Sure­ly I was not the only child view­er tan­ta­lized by the thought of what might hap­pen when the win­ning bach­e­lor and bach­e­lorette flew off togeth­er to take their shared vaca­tion-prize.)

The oth­er half of the short, a riff on “Tijua­na Taxi,” anoth­er hit from Alpert’s 1965 album, Going Places, is pret­ty great too.

Pro­duced by leg­endary ani­ma­tor John Hub­ley and his wife, Faith, this lit­tle two-for-the-price-of-one gem fea­tures con­tri­bu­tions by some of the peri­od’s oth­er greats: Ger­ard Bald­win, Phil Dun­can, Emery Hawkins, Bar­rie Nel­son, Rod Scrib­n­er, and Ed Smith. If it leaves you with a taste for more, have a look at the Hub­leys’ work for Dizzy Gille­spie, which we fea­tured last week.

A Herb Alpert and the Tijua­na Brass Dou­ble Fea­ture won the Acad­e­my Award for Best Ani­mat­ed Short Film in 1966. You can find it in our col­lec­tion of 675 Free Online Movies, plus our col­lec­tion of 35 Free Oscar Win­ning Films Online.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Dizzy Gille­spie Wor­ries About Nuclear & Envi­ron­men­tal Dis­as­ter in Vin­tage Ani­mat­ed Films

Father and Daugh­ter: An Oscar-Win­ning Ani­mat­ed Short Film

Saul Bass’ Oscar-Win­ning Ani­mat­ed Short Pon­ders Why Man Cre­ates

Ayun Hal­l­i­day was also trans­fixed by the pruri­ence of Match Game 74. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Big Bang Big Boom: Graffiti Stop-Motion Animation Creatively Depicts the Evolution of Life

in Animation, Art, Biology, Science | March 27th, 2014

There’s a rapa­cious, run-amok ener­gy to Ital­ian street artist Blu’s stop motion ani­ma­tion, “BIG BANG BIG BOOM.” How­ev­er long it took him, assist­ed by a slew of local artists, to ren­der a host of paint­ed large-scale char­ac­ters across a pri­mar­i­ly indus­tri­al land­scape in Argenti­na and Uruguay, it takes less than ten, glo­ri­ous­ly grit­ty min­utes for his just-dawned world to destroy itself.

This is evo­lu­tion at its most apoc­ryphal (and least sci­en­tif­ic). Crus­taceans and giant lizards who mere decades ago would have ter­ror­ized the streets of Tokyo are here no match for man. In fact, man is no match for man, rapid­ly engi­neer­ing his own demise as he chas­es about an appro­pri­ate­ly cir­cu­lar, aban­doned-look­ing silo.

The nec­es­sary demise of his murals—animation frames, if you like—serves as a nifty reminder of the evo­lu­tion­ary fate of most street art. A Banksy care­ful­ly pre­served beneath Plexi is the excep­tion, and even that is no guar­an­tee of per­ma­nence. Case in point, New York City’s leg­endary “insti­tute of high­er burn­ing,” 5 Pointz, whose 200,000-square-feet were recent­ly white­washed into noth­ing­ness overnight.

Boom indeed.

 Relat­ed Con­tent:

Banksy Cre­ates a Tiny Repli­ca of The Great Sphinx Of Giza In Queens

Obey the Giant: Short Film Presents the True Sto­ry of Shep­ard Fairey’s First Act of Street Art

Artists Paint Paris, Berlin and Lon­don with High-Tech Video Graf­fi­ti

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

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How the Ancient Greeks Shaped Modern Mathematics: A Short, Animated Introduction

in Animation, Math | March 24th, 2014

If you think Ancient his­to­ry does­n’t mat­ter to your life today, think again. Cre­at­ed by The Roy­al Insti­tu­tion and the ani­ma­tion shop 12Foot6, this short ani­mat­ed video reminds us that the Greeks gave us some of the most basic con­cepts used in math­e­mat­ics — con­cepts that we still use to nav­i­gate our mod­ern world today. As with dra­ma and phi­los­o­phy, every­thing goes back to the Ancient Greeks.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

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:

What Ancient Greek Music Sound­ed Like: Hear a Recon­struc­tion That is ‘100% Accu­rate’

Dis­cov­er the “Brazen Bull,” the Ancient Greek Tor­ture Machine That Dou­bled as a Musi­cal Instru­ment

Intro­duc­tion to Ancient Greece: A Free Online Course from Yale

Free Cours­es Online Math Cours­es from Great Uni­ver­si­ties

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Animated Video Features Werner Herzog Discussing His Childhood Adventures & 20th-Century Rage

in Animation, Environment, Film, Life | March 14th, 2014

I’m not sur­prised that film­mak­er Wern­er Her­zog hates the com­mod­i­fi­ca­tion of the word “adven­ture,” when he’s spent over four decades court­ing it in the most clas­sic sense. In the New York Pub­lic Library Con­ver­sa­tion Por­trait above (one of a series that includes the John Waters pro­file we brought you ear­li­er this week), the ven­er­a­ble direc­tor describes the sort of child­hood that could cause one to take a dim view of pack­aged tours mas­querad­ing as adven­ture.

After the infant Her­zog sur­vived a bomb­ing that cov­ered him in rub­ble, his moth­er, under­stand­ably fear­ing for her chil­dren’s safe­ty, fled to the moun­tains. The remote­ness of his upbring­ing shel­tered him in some ways (“I did not even know that cin­e­ma exist­ed until I was 11”) and not, in oth­ers. (“At age four, I was in pos­ses­sion of a func­tion­ing sub­ma­chine gun and my broth­er had a hand grenade.”)

When he says that hunger was a pre­vail­ing theme, I dare you to dis­agree.

I’m like­wise inclined to pay atten­tion when he asserts that the mod­ern obses­sion with tech­nol­o­gy is gob­bling resources at a dis­as­trous pace, and that thou­sands of world lan­guages will have dis­ap­peared for good by 2050.

Dire pre­dic­tions, and yet he fills me with cheer every time he opens his mouth. I swear it’s not just that mar­velous, much imi­tat­ed voice. It’s also a com­fort to know we’ve got a pro­lif­ic artist remain­ing at his out­post from a sense of duty, gloomy yet stout as a child in his belief that an ecsta­sy of truth lies with­in human grasp.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Wern­er Herzog’s Eye-Open­ing New Film Reveals the Dan­gers of Tex­ting While Dri­ving

Por­trait Wern­er Her­zog: The Director’s Auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal Short Film from 1986

Mas­ter Cura­tor Paul Hold­en­gräber Inter­views Hitchens, Her­zog, Goure­vitch & Oth­er Lead­ing Thinkers

Ayun Hal­l­i­day looks in the eyes of the bear … Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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John Waters Talks About His Books and Role Models in a Whimsical Animated Video

in Animation, Books, Film, Life | March 10th, 2014

Kudos to car­toon­ist Flash Rosen­berg for hav­ing the huevos to illus­trate cult film icon John Waters’ remarks at the New York Pub­lic Library in real time before a live audi­ence. The first half minute of this ani­mat­ed Con­ver­sa­tion Por­trait had me wor­ried on her behalf. What a relief when the the coiled lump she was swab­bing with brown water­col­or turned out to be a cin­na­mon roll, and not the sub­stance Divine (the direc­tor’s muse) famous­ly ate—for real—in 1972’s Pink Flamin­gos.

It’s a very free asso­cia­tive process. The top­ic under dis­cus­sion turns out to be not baked goods, but rather role mod­els. (Roll mod­els, get it?)

As to who the Sire of Sleaze choos­es to ele­vate in this capac­i­ty:

Croon­er John­ny Math­is, whose heav­en­ly pipes Waters pre­scribes as a poten­tial rem­e­dy for bipar­ti­san ugli­ness.

Play­wright Ten­nessee Williams (whose work Car­di­nal Spell­man denounced as “revolt­ing, deplorable, moral­ly repel­lent…”)

And, touch­ing­ly, his par­ents, whom Rosen­berg draws with arms encir­cling their pen­cil-mus­tached tot, a sweet Three Is a Mag­ic Num­ber tableau. (In non-ani­mat­ed life, Waters is one of four chil­dren.)

The Prince of Puke mod­est­ly deflects inter­view­er Paul Hold­en­gräber’s asser­tion that he him­self is a role mod­el, advis­ing his fans to pick ten flawed indi­vid­u­als from whom they’ve learned some­thing  and “let them know how much you mean to them.”  (He may have meant “let them know how much they mean to you,” but it might be a fun sort of exer­cise to fol­low his instruc­tions as uttered.)

And if on some far off evening, you’re moved to have sex on his grave, know that this role mod­el’s ghost will rest con­tent.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Waters Makes Hand­made Christ­mas Cards, Says the “Whole Pur­pose of Life is Christ­mas”

Grow­ing Up John Waters: The Odd­ball Film­mak­er Cat­a­logues His Many For­ma­tive Rebel­lions (1993)

An Anti, Anti-Smok­ing Announce­ment from John Waters

Ayun Hal­l­i­day told you cha cha heels, black ones! Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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