Remember William Ketridge? I wrote an article about him and his work a few months ago.

Today Nils again recommended another videoto me I'd like to share with you because in general it follows the same idea of showing the passing of time through animation. It's a kind of meta animation precisely because it's reflecting the animation process itself.

Perhaps you saw the Muto Wall Animation before, which became quite popular last year around the web. It was made by the same guy called Blu who seems to be a highly creative person. – It's always a pleasure to see his works. Besides, he has a fancy website which suits his artworks very well. Have a look yourself at his film COMBO:

a collaborative animation by Blu and David Ellis | year 2009 | produced by studio cromie | music by Roberto Lange | made at Fame festival 2009

Of course Blu's films differ from those of William Kentridge. Kentridge draws and shoots them in a controlled (and controllable) studio situation with charcoal on paper, whereas Blu is working outside on deserted buildings with wall paint, chunky tools and sometimes capricious weather. Animators love to control lights and to reduce flicker to a minimum so they would have a constant lighting. In this case Blu embeds the changing sunlight and moving shadows in his animation. I love how he includes the building's doors, windows and special traits to literally unreel his organic animation.

And again, the sound design is very supportive to the animation... Animation is purely artificial but in order to build a convincing situation a balanced sound design is absolutely necessary.