animation archive post 01

So, I've been working in the animation archive at university for a while now, and at the moment my job consists mainly of transfering from vhs to dvd lots and lots of short films. There's all sorts of stuff there, old mtv idents by bill plympton, the brothers quay, piotr dumala, joanna quinn, prit paarn, run wrake etc (mtv really commissioned a LOT of cool stuff in the olden days, everyone who's anyone in the animation world seems to have done an ident for them in the mid 90s) and one of the cool things about working in the archive is the sheer amount of films you get to watch and discover. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of terrible films I have to get through, but every now and then you find something absurdly wonderful you would never have seen otherwise.
Yesterday, that happened with this film, "Loves me, Loves me not" directed/animated by Jeff Newitt for Aardman in 1992. (yes, 1992!) The film itself I don't really care for, neither the design, but they both serve their purpose as a canvas on which to showcase some really spectacular character animation.
I have no idea how he managed to create such smooth, squashy stretchy, tex avery style 2d posey animation in stop motion, with the fluidity and control of cg. When I was watching it I couldn't quite believe it was stop motion, even though I knew it was as this film pre-dates modern cg by a loong way and is obviously plasticine.
Anyway, enough said, enjoy the obsecenely masterful animation, hopefully I'll make these posts a regular thing, sharing any other discoveries I stumble across.

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