Director Dannah Nayblat Could Use A Little Help To Heat Things Up.

Director Dannah Nayblat could use your help and support to finish her labor of love, a stop-motion animated music video. It's true, I get many submissions about projects on kickstarter, but it was her explanatory video asking for help, and the goodies with which she rewards her backers, that got my attention. Of course her personal note to me, gushing with praise about my blog and my readers, didn't hurt.



Some Like it Hot is the song title of an animation music video that she's been working on in her spare time (and sleep time :) for the last couple of years, for a band named Club Des Belugas. The technique she's using is stop motion, but rather than taking a series of still photos and editing them in a sequence, which is traditional stop motion - she takes photos of the actors and place them in virtual sets that she designs on her computer.



There are several stages to the process - first she selects the photos she'll be using and edits a sketch of the scene (they shot hundreds of photos for each little scene). Then she does the artwork. Aside from creating the backgrounds, she may need to place items in the actor's hands, change the color of their shirt, re-style their hair or change their whole head... There are also many adjustments that need to be made in terms of scale and color correction so that all the components work together. Finally, she exports the final frames and place them in the video.

The whole thing is EXTREMELY time consuming (as many creatives know)!

You can see part of her work process, in the video below, to better understand what takes so long... and hopefully you'll think that the results are worth it and help fund her on kickstarter.



"Visually striking, imaginative & funny stop-motion animation video for a great song!" is the description of her kickstarter project that launched a couple of days ago and instantly became a STAFF PICK.



The band - Club Des Belugas - is based in Germany, the singer, Brenda Boykin, with her unique (award winning) deep voice, is American, and the band members are from different countries. Danna is based in Israel, but the leading male, Starskee Suave and Gilad Koriski, the photographer who captured him, both live in Los Angeles (she directed those sessions in the middle of the night, via skype...)



The israeli team includes photographer Shiran Carmel and the lovely Ester Rada, who is the female lead. Ester is a known Israeli actress, and though she isn't the performer of this song, she's a great singer in her own right (her single Save a Little Love for Me from the new Club Des Belugas album, is one of the rewards offered for your pledges). The hair and makeup artist is Zion Ashkenazi and the wardrobe was contributed by Hila Aharon.


above: Director Dannah Nayblat

Learn more about her project here, and help her turn her dream into a reality, on kickstarter.

Bing Brings Back Rankin/ Bass Stop-Motion Rudolph For A Holiday Ad Campaign

above: Microsoft executives Aaron Lilly, left, and Sean Carver, pose with figures from the animated show 'Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.'

On November 23rd, Microsoft's Search Engine, Bing, kicked off the holidays with a new twist on some of the most beloved characters of all-time. Building on the iconic Rankin-Bass production of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the stop-motion animated classic that first premiered in 1964, they are introducing a series of new stop-motion animation shorts (all shown in this post) featuring the original characters.


above: a still from one of the four stop-motion animated Bing commercials for Christmas 2011

Produced by Bent Image Labs, the new shorts will appear in select holiday TV programs including holiday specials like “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”, “Frosty the Snowman”, and “South Park Christmas”, and in movie trailers for hotly anticipated winter movies, “Arthur Christmas”, “The Muppets”, and “Happy Feet Two.”

Bing Bumble-Less:

“Bumble”, the more beloved name for the Abominable Snow Monster, features the lovable Bumble, who has lost his scary roar. He uses Bing to search for “scary monster” and once inspired by a few Bing Videos, perfects his roar to be appropriately scary again.


Bing Hot Yoga:

Yukon Cornelius becomes exhausted from pulling Hermey and Rudolph on his sled and collapses in the snow. Luckily, Bing helps him find the closest hot yoga studio using Bing Local.


Bing Social Search:

Hermey, Yukon and Bumble are tired of the winter weather and are in dire need of a vacation. Bing Travel saves the day via a “fabulous island resort” search, highlighting Hermey’s friends who have “liked” specific resorts, leading to Bing Travel and the perfect destination.


Bing You Won't Believe This:

Santa and Mrs. Claus get a little crazy in the workshop with bubble wrap, search on Bing Video for bubble wrap how-to’s, and hilarious antics ensue.


Microsoft Corp. licensed the rights to the characters from Rudolph's 47-year-old holiday special after convincing their owners that the Bing commercials would add an endearing chapter to the reindeer's story. The rights to Rudolph and the rest of the cast are owned by the children of Robert L. May, who wrote the story in 1939 while working as a copywriter at the Montgomery Ward department store (May's brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, later wrote the famous song).

Aaron Lilly, a Microsoft executive who helps conceive Bing's promotions, came up with the idea to build holiday ads around the Rudolph story two years ago. It didn't happen then because the Aflac insurance company had already bought licensing rights to the characters for that holiday season.

Microsoft declined to say how much it's spending on the Rudolph campaign.

Thanks to Sean Carver and Aaron Lilly of the Bing Team for information

The Largest Stop Motion Animation Set Ever Shot On A Nokia Camera Phone - Gulp.

'Gulp' a one and a half minute long short film created by Sumo Science at Aardman for Nokia, depicts a fisherman going about his daily catch. The advertisement breaks the world record for the 'largest stop-motion animation set', with the largest scene stretching over 11,000 square feet.



Shot on location at Pendine Beach in South Wales, every frame of this stop-motion animation was shot using a Nokia N8, with its 12 megapixel camera and Carl Zeiss optics.

Here’s a film taking you behind the scenes on ‘Gulp’, Aardman’s world record breaking short film. It reveals what went in to making such a complex film outside and away from the controlled environment of a studio, and how it was shot using a Nokia N8:



Animation: aardman.com
Sand artists: sandinyoureye.co.uk
Product: nokia.com/​n8