THE MIS-ADVENTURES OF MERLIN JONES (AND OTHER PAPER CUT OUTS)

In case you were unaware, I am a huge stop-motion fan and perhaps my excitement over this post comes from the fact that I've been working on a paper-cut-out stop-motion short with Jonny over the past few months.  This opening credits sequence from the 1964 Walt Disney feature "The Misadventures of Merlin Jones" featuring Annette Funicello and Tommy Kirk has only inspired me further to create more pieces like this! I've spent the last half hour grinning from cheek to cheek after watching these credits and reading more about the animation greats that are Bill Justice and X. Atencio.   (below)

Bill and X (Xavier) were both employed at the Walt Disney Company during the mid 1930's where they worked together on experimental pieces for Disney as well as stop animation shorts in "Mary Poppins"and "The Parent Trap" to give a few name droppers.

Opening Credits to "The Misadventures of Merlin Jones"

Cartoon Brew put out this post a few days ago about Kevin Kidney's paper doll artwork of TV/fim star and singer, Annette Funicello, who was diagnosed with MS in 1987.  Kidney's zazzle site offers his paper doll artwork of Annette in a variety of cases, bags, pins, etc where all purchases go to the Annette Funicello Research Fund for Neurological Diseases.  I love seeing an artist extend his or her support in this way towards another artist, especially for such a great cause trying to fight this debilitating disease.

Hope you enjoy this intro as much as I did :)

JOSH RITTER - LOVE IS MAKING ITS WAY BACK HOME

Found this lovely little stop motion music video via colossal blog.

Directed by Erez Horovitz. "A team of nearly twenty artists, editors, directors and product assistants ushered the video into being. The group started with storyboarding and computer animation before converting the digital graphics to paper cutouts (frame by frame), photographing those 12,000 cutouts and then stitching them together into four minutes of paper animation." from colossal.

learn more about the making of here!

be sure to watch the whole thing! it starts out slower, but the end is superb :)

Josh Ritter - Love Is Making Its Way Back Home from Josh Ritter on Vimeo.