Stop Motion Geek

A chrysanthemum blooms and swords of Samurai begin to clash in rhythm with snare drums as the stop motion music video for the song “Old Love” begins. Directed and animated by Paul Zito, an animator currently living in Portland, Old Love follows the story of two samurai, each belonging opposing factions, who face each other in battle and then fall in love when the victor realizes that he cannot bring himself to kill the other. The song “Old Love” – based on the Japanese folktale “The Chrysanthemum Pledge” – is on its own a great listen. Joe Hertler, the song’s lyricist, says, concerning the inspiration for the project, “What I really wanted to capture in the song – and I’m not sure of the best way to put this – is that there is beauty in tragedy and violence. Their [the Samurai’s] love is forbidden, but sincere, sensitive, and beautiful. Sounds kinda silly to say it like that, but it’s what I was feeling when I wrote the song. I felt very connected to these characters and as a fan ...

In attempts to describe the heart of the creative process, words often fail. There are only a handful of things that can’t be quantified using scales, graphs or charts. Artistic passion is one of those things. The short documentary Rebuilding in Miniature by Veena Rao provides a rare chance to see the world through the eyes of an artist – a maker of miniatures – analyzing the creator’s motivations surrounding his art. The documentary is the closest thing to an invitation to experience the emotion and artistic passion that goes into the art of crafting miniatures. The name of the subject of the documentary is artist Ali Alamedy. His pieces of art come in the form of beautifully crafted miniature scenes of real-life places. None of his pieces feature people or animals within the actual space of the created environments. There’s no human life explicitly apparent. However, Alamedy’s artistic fingerprint is apparent in every detail of his handcrafted environments. Each of his miniatur...

A little earlier this month, the television network Viceland released the inaugural episode of their 20-minute documentary-style format show Nuts + Bolts , hosted by rapper “Tyler, the Creator” in which they explored the medium of stop motion. Nuts + Bolts , as described by its host, Tyler, the Creator in the trailer for the show is, simply put, “the show describing how everything I [Tyler] think is awesome is made.” The stop-motion-centered episode follows the exploits of Tyler as he explores the making of process behind the stop motion medium. His journey follows him as he learns how to bring his idea for a short film from inception to final product, the central idea for which focuses on two men talking about flowers in a world where flowers have replaced recreational drugs and are now illegal. Zany ideas aside, the episode’s primary focus is on Tyler’s interviews with several of the stop motion industry’s leading professionals and pioneers, such as Henry Selick ( James and th...

LAMAR+NIK – a USA-based directing duo – recently released a stop-motion/live-action hybrid music video for the song “Half a Million” by The Shins. I had the pleasure of interviewing the directors about this project. This is the directors’ first stop motion project, and it’s an excellent debut at that. Until this project, the directors have primarily worked in live-action, directing music videos for music artists such as Deep Sea Diver and the Pixies as well as commercials for companies such as Adidas and KFC . LAMAR+NIK’s most recent collaboration is with the Grammy-award nominated, Portland-based, indie rock band The Shins to create the music video for the band’s song “Half a Million.” The video follows the exploits of black-and-white sticker incarnations of each of the band members – brought to life with stop motion – as they perform “Half a Million” and interact with everyday objects, places and people in a live-action world. You can go watch the music video here . The sto...