Our Favourite Videos from 2016
2016 has been a year full of great videos showcasing new techniques and styles, with ever increasingly ambitious motion graphics and promos being released each month. Below are some of our favourites, including work from individual animators, bands and studios such as Moth, We Are Royale and Giant Ant.
The One Moment – OK GO
OK GO videos are becoming more of an event with each release. Their video for The One Moment features exploding watermelons filled with paint, gold water balloons, flip books and more. Impressive enough until you realise that the majority of the video was filmed in 4.2 seconds and matches the backing music perfectly. Super creative, colourful and great fun. This one’s been on repeat since its release.
The Wire – Elliot Lim
A personal project put together by Elliot Lim for HBO’s The Wire, this video features a great play on perspective and depth with some smooth and creative transitions. It has a great texture to it and you get the impression that each scene has been lovingly crafted.
Costa Sunglasses – Giant Ant
Giant Ant have a great reputation for creating impactful stories across a range of animation styles. This video, ‘Fix Florida’ tackles an environmental issue about conserving Florida’s waterways. The continuous pan across the Florida landscape is an effect that works really well to tell the story, incorporating different perspectives and superb animation along the way. Great stuff as always, particularly the character animation and lighting throughout.
Made with Code “Love is” – Buck
Created for Google, this promo by Buck explores what love means to different people. The video interweaves through different scenarios and features a charming minimalist hand drawn look, helping to make the promo somewhat more personal and hand made. A particular favourite of ours is the music and sound effects which help to bring life to each scene, courtesy of Antfood.
Amex Gold – Matthias Hoegg & Colin Hesterly
This super slick promo for American Express combines both 3D and 2D animation to flow smoothly through different scenes on a holiday trip. The directors, Matthias Hoegg & Colin Hesterly, alongside production company Not To Scale, have created an engaging commercial that has a really strong identity, bold colours and great animation throughout. But mainly, it’s all about those transitions. Fantastic work.
Memorial Sloan Kettering – Ege Soyuer
Directed by Ege Soyuer as part of a series of videos for the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the video gets an important messages across with a clean, minimalist style that’s become increasingly popular this year. Beautiful lighting and excellent timing make this video a favourite.
Join Motionographer on Pateron – Slanted Studios & PepRally
Motionographer has been around since 2006 showcasing inspirational videos from around the world, providing insight into creative studios and the surrounding industry, whilst also putting together in-depth breakdowns and curating global events. This video, put together to raise awareness of their patreon campaign, includes a mix of photography and vector animation, showing a rich variety of techniques and styles. The quality of the video and the mix of media helps to reinforce their focus on well-crafted content regardless of how it was made, helping to promote their campaign to produce even more resources, tools, project breakdowns and much more.
Starbucks Gold Status – We Are Royale
Created by the talented team at We Are Royale, this short animation highlights the benefits of the Starbucks loyalty programme with characterful animation and a lot of creativity. The video is nicely textured, fun to watch and features stylish animation that carries you smoothly through to each scene.
Chipotle ‘A Love Story’ – Passion Animation Studios
Passion Animation Studios, the creators of the 2016 Christmas adverts for Very and Sainsbury’s, have put together a gorgeous 3D animation called ‘A Love Story’. It’s directed by Saschka Unseld, director of Pixar’s The Blue Umbrella, and features some really nice animation about love, rivalry and ultimately… food. Fantastic lighting and a great story make this one of our favourite videos of 2016.
The Evolution of Stunts – Honda & Channel 4
This promo for The Evolution of Stunts focuses on an impressive one take sequence by Damian Walters, performing famous movie stunts on a treadmill. Featuring plenty of props, effects and additional stunt performers; the promo really comes alive with the addition of 3D projected imagery to create background scenery making every sequence even more dramatic.
Woodland Trust – Moth
Deceivingly simple and filled with a strong emotive piano backing, this promo for The Woodland Trust is a great example of what can be achieved when a great core idea has been developed. The colours are captivating, the animation is natural and the message overall is spot on. Another great video from the team at Moth.
Inbox Shorts – Markus Magnusson and Bee Grandinetti
The second video on our list created for Google, Inbox shorts is a stylish animation created by Markus Magnusson and Bee Grandinetti to highlight the features of the Inbox app. Unfortunately it wasn’t used in the end, but thankfully they were still able to showcase it online. The animation is inventive, features some great character work and the video gets across quite a dry subject without relying on a voiceover to guide the viewer. It’s left up to the animation and the titles to convey the message. The sound design by Echoic is also fun and quirky, sitting alongside the animation perfectly.