Presenting Five More YouTube Play Winners

Here's to the next five YouTube Play winning entries (there are 25 in all). A few blogs ago I covered A through B so today we start with D since there's no C.

A still from the short film Deuce.

DEUCE, 2010 by Monica Cook (b. 1974, Dalton, Georgia; lives in Brooklyn, New York)

Have you ever had a burning desire to watch embalmed bodies bathe, shave, and paint their fingernails? How about give birth in full and glorious colour? Well, here's your chance. These animated sculpey(?) figures do everything live folks do and more, and look really creepy doing it.

A still from the short film Die Antwoord

DIE ANTWOORD – ZEF SIDE, 2009 by Sean Metelerkamp (b. 1984, Knysna, South Africa; lives in Cape Town, South Africa)

Ok, I stand corrected. There's no animation in this one. But there's something in the motion that makes it feel like it's almost animation. Anyway, the hip-hop music has an edgey rap line and heavy driving beat. What's it about? Help me out here, the accents ran right past me.

A still from the short film Gardyn

GARDYN, 2010 by Pogo (b. 1988, Cape Town, South Africa; lives in Perth, Australia)

Very cool... music assembled from found sound in and around the filmmaker's mom's garden. The vocal line is cut bits of the filmmaker's mom singing, the beat is held by drumming found sound in her garden. The visuals are live action video of both. Works for me.

A still from the short film I Met the Walrus

I MET THE WALRUS

Josh Raskin (Director and Animator), James Braithwaite (Drawings), Alex Kurina (Computer illustration), Jerry Levitan (Producer, Story and Voice)

Funky animation set to a charmingly innocent interview with John Lennon recorded on a consumer reel-to-reel tape recorder by a very young Josh Raskin in 1964. The topic is peace, non-violence... in general John Lennon's words of wisdom to the young. 

At still from the short film Ladybirds' Requiem

LADYBIRDS' REQUIEUM, 2005–06/2010

Akino Kondoh(b. 1980, Chiba Prefecture, Japan; lives in New York)

This is a really short animation comprised of beautifully drawn characters and perfect transitional morphs which knit one scene to the next. It's not so much a narrative tale as a series of scenes melting into one another.

Some of these films clearly have professional production values, like "I Met The Walrus" which was nominated for an Oscar. Others are clearly kitchen production. What's amazing is that the power of imagination holds more value than production polish. So fire up your creative engines and get something in to the next YouTube Play contest in 2012 - it's coming fast.