Here's an animation I saw about a year a go created by Donato Sansone. The concept of the hand playing or interacting with the figures usually gives a feeling of a Godlike presence. However this piece is different, instead they seem to be orchestrating the piece. Amazingly constructed animation, the changed camera angles and nice flow of movement, it's very smooth and just seems like it has been recorded and sped up, but it's pure stop-motion. I think the only thing that lets it down is the sound.. Especially the crowd and the cheering, very sitcom like.. Doesn't fit the piece. I think music would have gone better with it. This would actually be great visuals to a music video. Still, the simple idea of sound effects would still work, if they were less corny. The sound is similar to my idea, except I don't intend to include an invisible stage crowd.
Here's an ad for Guinness, directed by Michael Schlingmann. He has some other similar work but this is a more known piece. I'm mentioning this because to focus more on the pixelation-side of things. People have done a lot of amazing work with pixelation, and I think this advert works really well. Maybe not as far as selling the product, but the visuals and sound work quite well together. It's like a hand dance. The only part where it falters is the concept seems a bit foggy. I think it's more something to "wow" people, and in this sense it wouldn't probably work in a gallery or otherwise. Still enjoyable to watch though.
Another piece that I've directed had influence from is "the secret adventures of tom thumb" (there's a clip in an earlier post of mine). It's a stop motion animation where animated puppets interact with human actors. I've taken a lot from the concept of the piece.. The animated character Tom is conceived by these human actors, it's very strange but also seems natural somehow. I think it's the relationship between the characters that makes it seem believable. Because of Tom's intimate size, when he interacts with his father there is a playful element. I took a lot from this film and I saw the connection between creation of this imaginary character and their creators, per say. While the film underlying message is a lot different to this concept, I think I took a lot more from it. I guess it's sort of like "the creation of adam" in a sense, although maybe less spiritual.
