Flips 7: Animation (Flips)

Rating:
Summary: Work You Won't Find Anywhere Else!
Review: I LOVE animation, as a mode of entertainment, education and artistic expression. However, here in the U.S., animation is fairly synonymous with "family" films, and it's hard to find out what the rest of the world is doing with this incredible and potent medium.

Flips 7: Animation does remedy this a bit. As with another recent book/DVD "Animation Now!," the book is light on substance, but the DVD more than compensates. The DVD is Region 1 compatible, and includes work from these contemporaty international animation artists and studios:

Ambience Entertainment - Australia
The Cartoon Saloon - Ireland
Cosgrove Hall Digital - UK
Devilrobots - Japan
Duck Soup Studios - USA
Furi Furi Company - Japan
Liam Kemp - UK
Little Fluffy Clouds - USA
LOBO - Brazil
Loop - USA
Partizan Midi Minuit - France
Sam Chen - USA
Shynola - UK
Silver Fox Films - UK
Sixty 40 - Australia
Tooned In Inc. - USA
Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo Lab - Japan

I was particulary impressed by the work of The Cartoon Saloon, whose upcoming feature film "Rebel" looks beautiful (the trailer and a brief "making of" is included). I was also surprised by the delightfully strange music video "Rosebud" by Cosgrove Hall Digital, in which a floating head croons Jim Reeves' "Welcome to My World" to a hideous ogre. And Sam Chen's "Eternal Gaze" is simply a masterpiece - a film which transcends CGI filmmaking and brings you into the life and heart of an artist possessed.

There are a few pieces in this collection that seem to work on you and stick with you - a nice anthology of off-beat contemporary work. Though advertising agencies are represented in greater numbers that individual artists, Flips 7: Animation will give you a chance to see the possible future of animation around the world. I doubt you'll find these films anywhere else!

Rating:
Summary: Amazing, Inspiring, Also Causing Headaches
Review: They've put together something a real fan of animation would love. The good stuff about this book/dvd are; SOME great work, very pretty book, animation most people have never seen(at least in the US). The bad stuff; This book can give you a headache, the dvd sleeve is so poorly designed, your likely to break the dvd trying to get it in and out. The DVD menu is pretty bad too, you can't get to specific animations. The menu consist of chapters you will only know the contents if you look it up in the back of the book. A was also dissapointed that some of the animations in the book are not on the DVD. Including some that I was looking forward to the most. They are going to need to put on another volume of this to satisfy. If you are a big fan of animation, you will probably want to get this.