bag raiders + ron winter: shooting stars.

If they made cheese-flavoured bubble gum, and then you chewed it while watching Tron and playing a small keyboard, you’d get this video. It’s completely pointless and I love it.

Directed by Ron Winter for Bag Raiders’ “Shooting Stars.”

marko ljubez: wintermoon.

I immediately love all things Scandinavian. Swedish VFX designer Marko Ljubez’s “Wintermoon” is “a project that was born out of the dark Scandinavian winter.”

And that’s all I needed to know.

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Ljubez’s website is pretty stellar, including lots of interesting behind the scenes info into his work as a 3D artist and digital matte painter at stopp. That stuff is basically geek candy. Tasty. But I especially love his Photoshop Freestyle Sessions, where he dreams up fucking unreal images like “Cloud Boy”:

Via No Zap

friendly fires + chris cottam: kiss of life.

This video makes me happy. It’s a big spicy ball of sunshine and goodness.

Anyone know who directed it? I couldn’t find out anywhere – not even on Friendly Fires’ own website (which is pretty poor form, Friendly Fires, hate to tell you…) Maybe they self-directed?

Update: Turns out the vid was directed by Chris Cottam. Thanks to everyone who messaged me!

clusta: plus+.

This is really intense. I like intense.

Created by UK/LA based digital design shop Clusta for a Birmingham design expo in 2006. Three years later this shit still blows my socks off…

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kid cudi + nez khammal: make her say.

This feels nice to me; fresh and airy and pristine, with jolts of cool pastels like icing. Plus, the inclusion of balloons is always automatic win.

Kid Cudi’s establishing a rep for hot videos (check out the equally good vid for “Day and Night”) and he steps it up again with the clean, cinematic, and razor sharp split-screen vid for “Make Her Say”, featuring Kanye West, Common, and with a insidiously cute and catchy hook from Lady GaGa’s “Pokerface.” Not bad company.

Directed by Nez Khammal at Colonel Blimp, with post-pro at The Mill.

william campbell: the nature between us.

Here is the radness right here. Look no further…

Directed by William Campbell at Superfad.

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Via Motionographer

david o’reilly + u2: i’ll go crazy if i don’t go crazy tonight.

Irish-born, Berlin-based animator and film-maker David O’Reilly is a full out genius. He’s one of my favourite animators; his work is fully next level and it forces your brain to adjust to his sense of scale and dimension. You could fight it and convince yourself that it’s simplistic, or you can work to understand it and then fully realize the scope of his genius. Like the highest forms of art, he relentlessly pushes his medium forward.

For proof check out his brilliant “Please Say Something”, which deservedly was just chosen as one of the 5 finalists for the Cartoon d’Or 2009 competition from the European Assosciation of Animation Film.

This kind of surprised me, but his latest release is a video for U2’s “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight.” This is a definite collision of the avante-garde and the mainstream. I’m not really into U2, but, and I’ll admit I’m totally biased here, I think O’Reilly’s animation raises a fairly banal song into something far greater that it would be on its own.

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najork: street tests.

Behold the hotness. The only thing wrong with this incredible vid is how short it is. Seriously. I love this more than life.

Dear Eric Epstein (a.k.a. Najork). My ass is offically kicked. More please. Soon please. I love you.

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Via Motionographer

jul & mat: music painting.

I dig it anytime music is interpreted visually in a very literal yet still artistic way. It makes the connection between our sonic experience and our visual experience more obvious, but if it’s done well it also enhances it’s opposite; what we’re seeing makes us hear more, and what we’re hearing makes us see more.

That’s what happened to me when I watched Jul & Mat’s “Music Painting”, an official vid for Metronomy’s “On The Motorway.”

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Via Feed

n.a.s.a. + jimena oddi + jorge jamarillo: whachadoin?

Ok, seriousy N.A.S.A., what the fuck is going on? Crazy vids with some of the best directors and perfect visual blending-in of the work of some of my favourite fine artists… to almost every single track on your latest album? Are you trying to make me lose my shit? ‘Cause it’s working.

Over the last several months N.A.S.A. has been releasing a continuous bombardment of freaking amazing music videos from their insanely hot debut “The Spirit Of Apollo.” To get schooled quick, check out the vids for “A Volta”, “Gifted”, and “Way Down.”

To announce their summer U.S. tour and to hat tip to the 40th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing, they released a vid for “Whachadoin?”, co-directed by Argentine artist Jimena Oddi (who created the original artwork for the vid) and Jorge Jamarillo.

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