"Kid Koala's Basin Street Blues", Monkmus (c.2004)

One of the things I love about this clip is the carefully choreographed, unconventional floaty motion style. It's the perfect match for the unconventional, floaty style of the jazz classic remix. 

In an interview with Animation Reporter, the animator Monkmus describes relistening to the audio track as an important part of his design process: 

"AR: How did you conjure up the visualization for the video Kid Koala's Basin Street Blues?
MM: By listening to the track till my ears turned blue. Kid Koala provided me with the track and as I listened to it, images of a funeral procession in New Orleans crept into my mind. It was definitely the music that sparked the initial concept, but my interest in New Orleans and it's culture really spurned me on."
Animation Reporter - Monkmus interview

Here's another article about the artist, and links to his blog and website:  
Giant Robot Magazine interview 
Monkmus (website)
Monkmus (blog)

"Dimensions of Dialogue (Možnosti dialogu)" (1982), Jan Svankmajer

I was reminded of this film recently when we were researching stop-motion animation for The Lego Movie. It's one of the better-known short films made by Jan Svankmajer, a prominent Czech film-maker and artist, and won him the Grand Prize at Annecy in1983

"Dimensions of Dialogue" uses everyday objects, food and clay to create stop-motion animated dioramas exploring aspects of human interaction.



References

Wikipedia -  "Dimensions_of_Dialogue" (retrieved 16.06.14)

Cinelogue review - "Dimensions of Dialogue"   (retrieved 16.06.14)

Wikipedia -  "Jan Svankmajer"  (retrieved 16.06.14)



Further Reading
Scmitt, B. and Dryje, F, "Jan Svankmajer: Dimensions of Dialogue", Arbour Vitae (2013)

"The King's Speech - Bertie" (2010) - Tom Hooper

[click here to watch clip]

I'm posting this clip from "The King's Speech"  to illustrate the importance of acting within a pose.

The scene is taken from early in the story, when the Prince of Wales (Colin Firth) meets Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) for the first time. The Prince suffers from a severe stammer. His wife has sent him to Logue, who specialises in the treatment of speech pathologies.

Overall the characters change their silhouette very little throughout the scene.  Instead, they are able to convey information about their inner thoughts with minimal gestures.

A prime example is the final shot.  Logue delivers the line "Makes it official, then." but the shot continues for another beat after this.  No major change of pose, just a subtle turn of the head, nod and tightening of the mouth that says "I just made a joke, are you with me?"

In an earlier shot, the Prince's self-loathing is made obvious by his nervous fumbling with his cigar case. It's in this scene that we begin to understand the Prince's speech problem may have more to do with his mental state than any physical malady.

I think it's great for us as animators to study live dramatic work like this closely. It helps us to avoid cliches, and gives us more tools with which to tell craft our scenes.