Accumulonimbus on Vimeo

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1. Accumulonimbus

1 year ago

Natural and man-made objects on a spin cycle accumulate, disintegrate, and multiply. Created by stop motion animating clay on glass, the film is a meditation on motion and the life cycle of matter.

Direction/Animation/Sound
Andy Kennedy

Click here for making of blog entry!
andykennedy.net/#1708390/making-of-accumulonimbus

Credits

1,763 Likes

Robert Eager
3 days ago
Sergei Acuña
3 days ago
Lollito Larkham
3 days ago
Ben Exler
5 days ago
Saleh Kooshapour
6 days ago
Emily&Anne
1 week ago
Joshua Slaby
1 week ago
Hong Chan
2 weeks ago
Dario Cotti
3 weeks ago
Dyanna Louyakis
3 weeks ago

Tags

Kristen Miller 1 year ago

love it. what I love about work like this is that it's so deceptively simple - with seemingly carefree patterns and rhythms. But then, when someone without experience tries to recreate it, there's a painful discovery which hopefully leads to respect for the pure talent and creative skill required. I was particularly impressed with the artists ability to achieve such a feeling of fluid motion with the clay.
Tiny Inventions 1 year ago

A totally unique approach to motion and timing. I've watched this dozens of times and still pick up subtle details every time. Thanks for putting this online!
Steve Talkowski 1 year ago

WOW. The pre-planning alone is blowing my mind. Brilliant work!
lori samsel 1 year ago

Well done!
Henrique Neumann 1 year ago

Congratulations! You made a syntactic and creative work!
Erin Kilkenny 1 year ago

Amazing film, Andy! Totally mesmerizing. I'm going to go watch it about fifty more times.
Dario Becher 1 year ago

Amazing work!!!
Ayhan Cebe 1 year ago

Love this a lot.. amazing work!!
Machuson 1 year ago

when you say sound... does that mean that you created the music as well?
andy kennedy 1 year ago

Yes, I made the music as well.
Machuson 1 year ago

Wow. I'm jealous. I mean, to create just one element of this piece is impressive (to me anyway), but both animation and the music? You're very talented. Excellent work!
andy kennedy 1 year ago

Thanks!
Blake P Landry 1 year ago

you are a extremely talented person! great work!
Emily Mann 1 year ago

Wow wow wow! This rocks, Andy :-)
Helge Kiehl 1 year ago

Yeeahh!!! This is awesome and totally unique!!
Katie Armstrong 1 year ago

I've never seen clay look so elegant!
Boca Ceravolo 1 year ago

Holly sh*t! This is amazing! one of the best pieces I've seen in a long long time... Some people are just insane! :-D
So unique!

I can defly see agencies / prodco's ripping this of in the (very) near future, beware Andy!

Well done man, awesome!
Sam Shiryaykin 1 year ago

cool
Anton Christenson 1 year ago

Really great, and unique too =) the circle format is very interesting. i think there is two elements though that could have made this piece a little better; some use of color in details at end to make an outstanding effect and at any point in the video an outbreaking of the circular frame =D but, once again, already great work!
Gero Doll 1 year ago

top notch!
Excellent!!!
corrie francis parks 1 year ago

It's great when you see an animated film that could not have been done in any other medium than the one chosen. This is pretty awesome use of clay, bringing together the sculpting craft of an Aardman or Vinton with rhythm and repetition of the masters of abstraction. Well done!
Pawel Stec 1 year ago

Really good idea! Style and sound are great!
Jr.canest 1 year ago

you just blew my mind... so fluid, so... humanly fluid.
AMAZING.
Claudio Salas 1 year ago

Wow! Really really good! Did you start on the clay right away? Or did you have any previz/animatic/detailed storyboard first?
andy kennedy 1 year ago

Thanks Claudio,

The first 45 seconds or so I shot with out doing any previz or boards. Some things I sketched out on paper as I worked, but I mostly improvised. I posted a making of here shows how I planned for various parts:

blessedwithbeverages.com/index.php?/animation/making-of-accumulonimbus/
Matias Pisani 1 year ago

crazy crazy good good stuff
Sebastianbap 1 year ago

Clap clap clap
Amy Ball 1 year ago

hope you are good at remembering your dreams, they must be insane!!! Wouldn't even know where to begin to tap into myself to find something like that! AMAZING!!!
andy kennedy 1 year ago

Hi Amy,

I think I am pretty good at remembering my dreams. I actually sleepwalk and/or have night terrors on a regular basis, I have since I was a little kid.
Amy Ball 1 year ago

seems to be a condition related to this kind of genius!
Nanda van Dijk 1 year ago

Brilliant!!!!
Charles Pieper 1 year ago

Insanely fantastic!
This comment has been deleted.
andy kennedy 1 year ago

Hi Daniel, thanks for the link!
holke79 1 year ago

masterpiece...
keeeeee 1 year ago

wow...
viktorfokeev.ru 1 year ago

nice
Thomas Silvert 1 year ago

Great ! I can't stop to play this...
Igor Goduto 1 year ago

holly jesus I'm in shock! @.@
Nika Volkoff 1 year ago

Very accurate and captivating. Love it!
Laurens van Walbeek 1 year ago

Very nice!
Divya Gai 1 year ago

so pretty!
Kirsten Lepore 1 year ago

SO AWESOME! I LOVE the sound too.
Teresa A- 1 year ago

AMAZING! Stop Motion talent at its best :)
Alexandre DUBOSC 1 year ago

Great Job ! I love it and your "Making of" too ;)

Friendly !
Paula GM 1 year ago

Hey Andy, I found your work by chance on another web and came here to say it's great. It's kinda inspiring for me... so thanks for sharing this, really.

What kind of camera did you use?

:)
Håkon Lundvall 1 year ago

According to his blog: blessedwithbeverages.com/index.php?/animation/making-of-accumulonimbus/

He's "...using a Canon Rebel XT for the high res final image. The lense is an old manual Nikon Macro lense."
andy kennedy 1 year ago

That is correct. For the first half of the project I used a Rebel XT. Halfway through I bought a Canon Rebel XSI with live view. I highly recommend getting a digital slr with live view and using Dragon Stop Motion software, it's an awesome setup.
Paula GM 1 year ago

After asking about the camera I revised the making of and find out the answer, :P. Thanks Hakon!

Yes, I'm getting a new camera soon, I hope next week. I know Dragon is great, but I haven't tried it yet. I will, I will.

Thanks again Andy!
Håkon Lundvall 1 year ago

I loved it. In the beginning it didn't understand what I was watching, but as the story went along, and most of all, when I understood it was made of clay, it blew my mind!
Magnus Atom 1 year ago

that is some of the most brilliant stop motion animation i have ever seen! and it goes SOOO well with the sound. Amazing!!
Agile Films 1 year ago

Brilliant work.
Chris Ullens 1 year ago

Great stuff, really well done.
Congrats on the project!
Forward-Thinking Tam 1 year ago

Very, very awesome. (Reminds me of the excitement i felt being about 9 yrs old and seeing the 'Sledgehammer' vid for the first time)

Cracking music, too. :0D
Rafano 1 year ago

:) very nice!
Steve Leeper 1 year ago

What a great piece! I love the circular format with the constant spin motif. It feels like you ran my whole life through the spin cycle. I love that you let the clay be itself. I can't imagine how much time this took to produce.
andy kennedy 1 year ago

Thanks Steve! I worked on it for 2 1/2 years, but I had a full time animation job and a couple of freelance projects going on at the same time. .
Vinh Chung 1 year ago

Wow, what a great concept and awesome execution. The Making of Blog was pretty amazing too.
sam spreckley 1 year ago

brilliant... well done, inspiring work..
Goddamn Cobras Collective 1 year ago

We're speechless. This is so good it hurts. Wow!
Darth Waders 1 year ago

O M G ! This is one of the most impressive videos i have seen on Vimeo! Super nice work! And thanks alot for putting this up!
Zach Marsh 1 year ago

excellent work, dude! i wrote a blog entry about it directing people to your site. let me know your thoughts. if for some reason i'm violating any copyrights, i can take it down.

zachmarsh.tumblr.com
filmbot 1 year ago

so sick Andy congrats.
Radar 1 year ago

Love it
Kasper Werther 1 year ago

I love the timing in this animation, I like how it started with abstract organic forms.
It can be quite a challenge, animating clay on glass, that makes me appreciate it even more :)
colin reid 1 year ago

timing in this is wonderful. great concept. Did you use multible glass panels for depth?
brett 1 year ago

the quality of movment is amazing. A fantastic sence of gravity and weight.
hymn wong 1 year ago

You're genius! how long did you work on pre production, shooting, post production and music?
Matt Saunders 1 year ago

This is soooo great.
Polen Erciyas 1 year ago

wow!
I'm really glad I came across this!
Fabulous work,tremendous effort!
I hope people like you be very very successful and do more of this stuff,I really do:)

thanx for making my day!
Dan MacKenzie 1 year ago

That was excellent. Super smooth, great motion, loved it.
JuanitoDZ 1 year ago

nice work!
Michael Zumstein 1 year ago

good sound choice and awesome movie!
HippieHouse 1 year ago

My respect and total admiration from another animator. Your work is incredible!

Congratulations, please continue making this kind of delicious pieces!

Ignacio
Christi Bertelsen 1 year ago

Really amazing. Brilliant work :)
Joaquim Montserrat 1 year ago

Wow, the visuals and music work very nicely together ! Great timing too !
Incredible work
Vitalini 1 year ago

Very cool!!!
Daniel Roca 1 year ago

Art.
Axel Mohr 1 year ago

Where can i get the song? It's so trippy!
Stone Canoe 1 year ago

Incredible! Love it.
jim le fevre 1 year ago

true exploration and so refreshingly brilliant. I hope you enjoyed making this as much as I did watching it. Well done sir
Aulia Ardista 1 year ago

amazing
Bernard Winter 1 year ago

Sir this incredibly amazing. Old school at it's finest, in addition to the fact that it's visually and conceptually unique.
Well Done.
citoplasmas 1 year ago

Great, and I enjoy a lot your make. Good job.
Ole Laustsen 1 year ago

WOW!! What a cool video! thanks for showing a new-bee what is possible ;D
mpared 1 year ago

this is excellent posted at the curious brain
Lukas Vojir 1 year ago

genius, love it.. my favorite piece I've seen in weeks, also the fact you did the music, perfect!
Gilles Cortella 1 year ago

How the hell you did that, i'll never know...
Mikey Please 1 year ago

Wow. This is spectacular.
masanari kawahara 1 year ago

Clay! Circle! yeah! WELL done. I'm gonna watch it again!
Jon Troutman 1 year ago

incredible.
Tom Judd 1 year ago

Wonderful stuff - shared on animade.tv
alysson castro 1 year ago

beautiful!!
Georgios Cherouvim 1 year ago

Very nice animation. I particularly like the dynamics of things breaking and shattering you have.
well done!
Gergely Wootsch 1 year ago

Oh wow, this is stunning. Congratulations!
Sasha Nevolin 1 year ago

Hi! We are letting you know that we added your wonderful video to our collection at lookva.tv
WEREHAUS 1 year ago

Great piece, man. Way to push the boundaries of claymation. Its refreshing to see people using new techniques and styles with classic methods rather than just jumping right into digital.
Isabela Dos Santos 1 year ago

This is one of my biggest inspirations for animating. It's so dynamic yet simple, and just overall wonderful. And I can tell that you also put a lot of thought into the music and how it would lend greatly to the feel of the video, which I'm very glad about. I think you did an incredible job with that aspect as well.
It's all just so amazing. :)
3Dementia 1 year ago

SIMPLY AMAZING! How long did it take u to do all this! I love ur abstract motion and segues from one transition to the next. It was harmony with clay. Beautiful. Add me as a friend!
Sylvain MARC /Polyminthe 1 year ago

wow!
Sara Alonso 1 year ago

andy... you are not gonna believe this...but i had a similar idea for a project of mine!!!:D Check it out! Now, seeing your work.. I'll just have it printed... xxx
behance.net/lanubenegra/Frame/528542