Chad VanGaalen Animation

I've been meaning to share these superbly-animated music videos from Canadian singer-songwriter Chad VanGaalen. Aside from being an excellent musician, he's a talented animator and artist, incorporating fanciful colors and creatures with flowing, inter-connected movements. It's pretty trippy, and completely fascinating. He's worked on all of his own music videos and album covers, as well as those of a few other artists. Love his music, love his art- check him out already!




"Clinically Dead" (the first video and song I found from him, and still one of my favorites)


"Flower Gardens"


"Red Hot Drops"


"Molten Light" (this one is a little bit graphic, just fyi)


Holy Fuck- "Milkshake"

Short Film: "Falling..." by Dustball

I really enjoy this short animated film by Dustin McLean, also known as Dustball. The wire figures' movements are so fluid- when they fall their bodies bend softly and bounce as they hit the ground, and when the hero creates a bouquet out of paper it's assembles like clay. The concept is cute as well as disheartening- a combination I like. He composed the music too, which I find whimsically beautiful, reminiscent of Yann Tiersen. Mr McLean says of the work, "I wrote and started animating this in 2004 when I felt sadness for not being able to be with the girl I loved. The good news is I eventually DID end up marrying her and we are living happily ever after, but this animation was never finished. During the summer of 2007 I set out to finish it. The first 50 seconds are the original animation, everything else is new." I was expecting a much more happy-go-lucky tale based on the description so the ending was a nice surprise. Enjoy!



You can find a lot of other films, animated and live-action, at his website. Most seem to be comedic, with the tour de force of course being the genius "Literal Take On Me" video. My god. Amazing.