Animutation
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Animutation is a form of art using Macromedia Flash to create pop culture influenced videos of independent, mainstream, or foreign music. The style was popularized and invented by Neil Cicierega (aka Trapezoid) from Kingston, Massachusetts at the age of 13. The genre is currently expanding to include many other Flash artists. Independent musicians are turning to animutation artists and Flash-based music videos to promote their work for the Internet community. Currently a cult following, the genre has the potential to become mainstream within the next few years.
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Albino Blacksheep (ABS) History
According to www.albinoblacksheep.com, the hub of all things animutation on the Web, animutation is a style of animation invented by Neil Cicierega at age 13. This style of animation is usually characterized by random images of pop culture in sequence with music. The animation style is strange, weird, random, and from a creator's point of view, very easy to implement. Animutation has become quite popular over the years and is being commonly accepted as a form of Internet-based art transcending the mere Internet cult following. A commercial featuring animutation was created by Quizno's in 2004 and shows how the genre is segueing into mainstream media.
The first Animutation is believed to be "The Japanese Pokerap" by Neil Cicierega. Other animations by other authors adapting Neil's Animutation style were originally called Fanimutations, as they served as a tribute to Neil's Animutations, and were created by fans of Neil's work. ABS Member, Andrew Kepple created a three-part Flash series entitled, "Colin Mochrie versus Jesus H. Christ" that concluded Animutations and Fanimutations are to be interchangeable names for each.
Colin Mochrie is a staple of the Animutation style, as his image appears in various Animutations and Fanimutations as a running gag and as remembrance to the original Animutations. Colin Mochrie is a Canadian improv actor leading in Whose Line Is It Anyway?, This Hour has 22 Minutes, Improv Heaven & Hell, Blackfly, and other television series. He is aware of being an Internet celebrity among Animutation and Fanimutation artists and viewers.
Sourced from: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/animutation/
Audio
Animutations can be based on songs of foreign, independent, or mainstream origin. Japanese songs were used in many of the original animutations by Trapezoid, but newer animutations use songs in a wide variety of languages. The style does not require any particular language or genre of music.
Fake lyrics
In many animutations, some or all lyrics are intentionally "misheard" in a manner similar to that of mondegreens, resulting in nonsensical and unrelated sentences. These words are sometimes illustrated in the Flash movie, but in other cases, even the video is irrelevant to the lyrics. The misheard lyrics are usually featured in subtitles or as sing-along style lyrics.
For example, these lyrics were used in the second animutation made by Trapezoid, "Hyakugojyuuichi!!!":
- TV says donuts are high in fat, kazoo
- Found a hobo in my room
- It's Princess Leia, the yodel of life
- Give me my sweater back or I'll play the guitar!
These took the place of the real Japanese lyrics:
- Kimi-tachi to no deai wa zenbu
- Chanto oboete 'ru
- Kizutsukeatta koto mo atta kedo
- Sore wa (ēto) wasureta
Another example of mondegreens come from this animutation made by the same artist called "Earth vs. Funk", using the song "Funkastic" by Rip Slyme:
- Have a good yam key
- And a crusty eye
- See him on the pot
- Now you're funtastic
That took place of:
- F-U-N-K-
- A-S-T-I-
- C on the funk
- and funkastic
The real and fake lyrics may not appear very similar, but when one hears the song and imagines that the singer is speaking English in a heavy Japanese accent, it is almost believable. Sometimes, animutations are mondegreened throughout the whole song.
Recent works languages such as Dutch often contain even more convincing mondegreens by the virtue of Dutch being a Germanic language with many similar sounds to English (e.g. The eponymous French Erotic Film, the original Dutch of which was "Weet je wat ik wil"). The disadvantage is that sometimes the meanings remain very similar to the original, something that never happens in Japanese.
Video
Animutations are typically characterized by bright flashing backgrounds (so photosensitive epileptics should not view them), cut-and-pasted images (which are often resized or cropped sloppily resulting in a pixelated or rough look), haphazard scribbling on the images or other bad drawing, stick figures, and many other elements that give it a highly raw artistic vision. An animutation may re-use the same image many times, resulting in repetition and choppiness.
Most (or all) Animutation music videos have lyrics, so to represent the lyrics being spoken as dialogue from the random pics, users 'lasso' the mouth section and lower it a little or a lot. Images can also be stretched to represent dialogue also. There are many ways to do this technique.
Running gags
Virtually every single animutation and fanimutation contains one or more images of Colin Mochrie from Whose Line Is It Anyway? and Jay Jay the Jet Plane from the PBS children's series of the same name. Other popular images include Pee Wee Herman, Hulk Hogan, Harry Potter, characters from the show Mystery Science Theater 3000, Mr. Bean, Dave Thomas, the middle finger, SpongeBob SquarePants, Bill Cosby, Steve Urkel, and many other figures from popular culture, including Mochrie's Whose Line co-stars Drew Carey and Ryan Stiles. Catch phrases from shows have also been used, such as the phrases "Hi-keeba!" or "Watch out for snakes!", both taken from famous episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. A popular inside joke is the use of hidden images or messages that last for one frame. They are nearly impossible to see without pausing the video. The messages range from telling viewers to buy Funyuns, a message to disobey their grandparents, or just George Costanza from Seinfeld stating "These pretzels are making me horny!". Thus, the videos have a lot of replay value.
Animutation has also generated a few instantly recognizable catchwords, such as "gahbunga" and "wahdee", first seen in Team Rocket's Journey Through Time and Space (http://www.eviltrailmix.com/animutation/rocket.swf) and Earth vs. Funk (http://www.eviltrailmix.com/animutation/funk.swf), respectively. Animutations tend to incorporate material from previous animutations. In particular, Hyakugojyuuichi Forever! (http://tmst.twu.net/flash/151forever.html) is full of references to past animutations.
History
In an early Salon interview, Trapezoid said that he was originally inspired by "insane Japanese commercials." The original animutations, "The Japanese Pokerap" and "Hyakugojyuuichi," both based on Japanese Pokemon music, were made by Trapezoid in February of 2001, and quickly became a small Internet fad. The style was adopted by others, and the term "fanimutation," to refer to the works by other artists, was adopted. See external link "Mutant Genius" for more history.
See also
- Arfenhouse
- Fanimutation Wiki (http://omega.cs.iit.edu/~dwedit/wiki/index.php/Main_Page)
External links
- Trapezoid's Animutations (http://www.eviltrailmix.com/animutation/)
- Albinoblacksheep.com animutations (http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/animutation/)
- Animutations on ebaumsworld.com (http://www.ebaumsworld.com)
- Animutations on superfro.com (http://www.superfro.com)
- Animutations on newgrounds.com (http://www.newgrounds.com/collections/animutations.html)
- Verylowsodium.com (http://www.verylowsodium.com)
- The Austin Chronicle: "Mutant Genius" (http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2002-01-25/screens_feature2.html)
- Salon: "All hail Neil Cicierega" (http://archive.salon.com/tech/log/2001/04/26/animation/)
- JamezBond (http://home.comcast.net/~dwedit/flash/jamezbond.html)
- List of well known Animutations (http://krystyna.prkoritu.net/animutations.htm)