joel was contacted by bibliotheque design and asked if he could turn this poster design into something animated for the olympic opening day. click on the torch to light the flame and then drag your mouse across the screen to move the flame - let the olympics begin!
got a wonderful surprise this morning when sue who is on the cms pioneer training told me her daughter had animated a track of harry's called writer's block. this is from his album rhythm and poetry when he was more on a rap tip than a poetry one. anyway it's an absolutely delightful movie and must have taken an age to make. i haven't actually met flora martyr but she is clearly someone to look out for...
we have 3 amazing new animated parables on proost this month. they are the lost son by joel baker, benny the boss by jon birch and the gaga samaritan by andi mac. watch the promo below to get the flavour. this project is a partnership with stapleford house who will be producing lesson plans for secondary schools to use with the movies at the beginning of 2011. you can download the movies through proost and if you are a proost subscriber they are in the download section on the site.
animated parables promo from jonny baker on Vimeo.
stash is a monthly dvd zine of animations, motion graphics, visual effects with a mix of short films, music videos, virals and ads. i was given issue 65 so it's clearly been around a while. each year they also produce a dvd of the best of that year and have a number of collections. if you are familiar with onedotzero it's in a similar vein - creatively brilliant and a wide range of styles.
there are a number of beautiful short films on the issue i've got. one of the simplest and my favourite is lucky, a sad lament for the way we humans treat fellow creatures on the planet, especially whaling. the good news is that the film is online at hybworks.co.uk. click on lucky on the left hand column under short films. there are a number of other short films there which i haven't yet looked at - let me know if you find any gems.
9 Lessons is a wonderful new flash animation from jon birch of asbojesus fame. it is incredibly simple an idea. run the flash file (in a browser or flash player) and there are 9 animating loops corresponding to each of the nine lessons and carols from the traditional christmas service. but here's the brilliant part - each one loops for as long as you like while you do the reading and whatever else. then you simply click on the play button in the corner to move on to the next image. it's only £2.99 and is this year's offering from proost into the ever expanding creative melee of ideas as the worldwide body of christ goes crazy to celebrate the coming of jesus the god/human into the world.
proost actually now have an amazing selection of advent ideas and resources. if you've not come across them have a look at the following:
nine - nine artists interpret the traditional nine readings with 6 movies and 3 songs - see here for info
25 - si smith's amazing cutout and make nativity characters and advent calendar and comic
- see here for more info
wait - vaux's simple but powerful movie and liturgy on waiting in advent - see here
silent night - a movie that's ideal for pretty much any christmas service - see here
then of course lots of liturgies and songs on the advent theme elsewhere in the books and audio sections...
it's probably obvious but these resources are as useable round a meal table or in your lounge with a family and friends as they are in a worship service. use with creativity and imagination!
did i ever mention that if you subscribe to proost you get access to all the back content and the coming year whenever you like for the equivalent of five pounds a month?! ;-)
anyway hope your own creative juices are flowing and that of your communities. i'll be blogging other ideas and stuff that's out there as the weeks go by.
i am making 9 lessons a worship trick - no 75 in the third series - as i love it so much.
[update: jon has added it to youtube if you want to take a look]
andi mac rocks! he is one of proost's unusual suspects - new talent that we publish. he contacted us out of the blue last year and we published clouds - a quirky movie. last year at the greenbelt unusual suspects session he played vampire love - which we adored - even more quirky! that now has an electro french pop sounding soundtrack and we decided to hold it back for valentine's day so it's just come out this month. he was also one of the artists we featured as part of nine with another brilliant piece. andi is now carving out a niche as a designer, animator, illustrator... and he sent me a link to a piece he has done for SAMS ireland called the parable of the sea. it is stunning - simple, sad, powerful.
go and watch it on his site and there is a link to paypal to buy it for three pounds. also if you haven't watched any of the three movies andi has released on proost they are all on his site in the animations section...
a while back i posted a worship trick - contemporary stained glass windows in motion that linked to cafe church and their animation project. they have now published the animations as a CD ROM which is great news (thanks darren for the tip off). you can order it from cafe church
the blurb about it says...
Cafe Church Glebe is meshing art with technology as a way of enriching their gatherings for worship.
From 2002 - 2003, Cafe Church employed a digital artist, Rick Bull, who produced animations - prayers, scripture passages, visualised themes. We have been using these as a regular part of our worship.Think of them as contemporary stained glass windows in motion.
This program continued in 2004. Cafe Church secured the services of Rob Thwaites (theatrical practitioner, digital artist) as Arts Facilitator, and Cameron Semmens (performance poet and wordsmith) and Pete Harding (musician and digital artist) as Artists in Residence.
Technorati Tags: animation, worship tricks, alternative worship
a couple of animations for good friday from pilgrims progress
crown of thorns | shattered cross
(thanks to mark for the link)
today is my turn to post on the grace lent blog. i thought i'd post here as well and make it a worship trick...
si smith has done a comic strip 40 of jesus journey into the wilderness. this was used by revive at greenbelt last year. i missed it there but first saw it at the IASYM conference in january when simon hall led some worship. he used the comic strip in a powerpoint presentation played over a track off revive's first album beautiful day (can't remember which one). si used to be part of the group that has become maybe (an understated name if ever there was one) in oxford, though he has now moved to leeds and joined revive.
maybe are posting one of si's illustrations every day during lent which is a wonderful idea. by the end of lent you will be able to download them all...
a slight warning - the images haven't been that compressed for the web so if you are on a phone dial up, as lent goes by the page will take a while to load - worth the wait though. add your suggestions for an accompanying music track in the comments...
i have a new book out imagining mission with john v taylor which i have co-authored with cathy ross
