Wheel Meets Friction
Claude CloutierWheel Meets Friction uses archival footage, animated illustrations and amusing narration to explain how the invention of the ball bearing reinvented the wheel.
Take a visit to the factory to see the nuts and bolts of how chocolates are made, and learn how melting a bar of chocolate was involved in the invention of the microwave. Join us this holiday season for our December issue “Science for Nanos’ - a fun packed learning experience for children that adds zest to the subject of science.
- Wangechi Ngugi
Wheel Meets Friction uses archival footage, animated illustrations and amusing narration to explain how the invention of the ball bearing reinvented the wheel.
A young man, accompanied by his mysterious mechanical bear, visits an abandoned observatory to confront memories of his past and follow his Father on a journey into the unknown. A magical journey about relationships and what it is to be human.
Plant particles are digitally combined with abstract constructions. They thicken till figurative creatures are generated. The viewer is hoaxed to, consumed and regurgitated by these constructed forms. A mystical, threatening journey through the hidden and fantastic world of plants.
Increasing in its number, small rabbits take care of a great dolphin. Can the dolphin get to sleep by rabbits' gentle caress? May many people have good sleep and sweet dreams tonight even in the world with whining sounds and wriggle of yin and yang.
A law describes the consumption of soil as the population grows. How much longer can the city continue to grow ensuring enough fertile soil to feed the population of the Earth? Here is a popular science short film recounting this study, and it is animated entirely through programming code for the op
This singular film experience takes place in our planetarium - a 180 degree screening room at Grimstad Culture House. The film explores the world of moths and other insects through 3D Xray images. An upbeat adventure into the world of butterflies and inner structures of the insect world. Moths are a
Cathon has borrowed her aunt's camera and wants to take some nice pictures of Iris. But she discovers that her best friend isn't particularly photogenic. The two pals explore how people preserved memories in the past.
An eccentric physicist in a room seemingly adrift in space explains the fundamental principles of physics using slapstick metaphors.
Puck remembers the night when his cat gave birth to kittens in his bed.
Here is the world's first animation made to be watched by chimpanzees. Just for this once, we will show it to you humans.
Five young students in a Shanghai school of arts audition for a part in a film. They talk about their inspirations, their personnal story and about what drives them to act. Being adolescents, their motivations are as ingenuous and unclear as the film they are auditioning for. Combining documentary a
After watching Back to the Future 2, an imaginative young girl and her stuffed teddy bear try to invent a real, working Hoverboard.
In the future, we sent our children to the stars. This is their story. The Children of Space is my homage to low budget B-movies and Toho science fiction films of the 1960s, made as part of a film acting class I taught for Spotlight Youth Theater for their winter 2015 semester of classes.
In How Do They Recycle Paper? , find out what happens to all that paper we put in our recycling boxes.
Set in a post-apocalyptic African slum and city, Kichwateli takes the viewer on a spiritual and metaphorical voyage through a young boy's dream mixing new imagery of a young boy wondering inquisitively with a live TV as his head to show the effects of media on a young generation. This music-metary i
Cathon has found something wonderful in the recycling bin—a birdsong clock. But Iris isn't totally on board with her friend's taste, so she seeks a compromise. She wonders how people told time before clocks.
Two young brothers living in rural isolation struggle to survive in the wake of a mysterious attack, only to have their fragile world shattered by the arrival of a teenage girl.
Most children today learn to use a computer before they learn how to tie their shoes or ride a bike. All around the world a new generation of children is growing up spending more time in the virtual world than playing at their local playground. This film provides stories from three young protagonist
Slippery Ice! uses archival footage, animated illustrations and amusing narration to explain why we slip on ice.
Mo is an adult with Autism Spectrum Disorder. They spend a lot of time in their brain. Today, a hole started following them.
Muybridge´s Disobedient Horses is a series of four episodes in which the artist Anna Vasof investigates where she can find the essence of cinematic illusion when she looks into everyday life and what happens when she uses everyday objects and movements as cinematographic mechanisms. Even if th
May 29th, 2019, celebrated 100 years of the eclipse observed from Sobral, in the interior of Ceará, which was the first experimental proof of the Theory of General Relativity, proposed four years before by German physicist Albert Einstein.
The story takes place in Manazuru, a small coastal town in Kanagawa, Japan. Through interviews with locals and the time spent there, I collected various anecdotes into this City Cycling Fantasy Film. Cycling around the town, a girl comes in contact with anecdotes of Manzazuru that are floating in th
Iris and Cathon are shocked to discover how big and heavy the first microwave oven was. Turns out that inventing it involved melting a bar of chocolate.
Fast forward. A camera rushes across Argentina´s stone desert toward a cactus and crashes headfirst through an opening into the plant´s interior. There, a view opens up of an eerie universe. Vibrating insect wings beat, swishing against one another, glistening with a toxic beauty, and wi
Between the wild fables of Adriana, a modern little girl, and the poetry of Isabella, hanged by her brothers in the 16th century for treason, what is the connection? Here, Adrian is telling a story, Camille grumbling and Océane, in who knows what boredom, is trying to get her doll to speak it
The short "Why is Gravity Different" explores and challenges questions of physicist Jared Kaplan's expertise – quantum gravity. Even though physicists have been studying gravity for centuries, it remains a mystery. By reviewing the history of our understanding of gravity and how the force beha
Iris and Cathon are at the beach, and they both have new swimsuits. Cathon makes fun of her friend's choice of beachwear. You'll learn a lot about the origins of the bathing suit.
Pancho is 11 years old and visits his grandparents in Concepción, Chile. There he meets Rubén Escribano, oceanographer from the IMO, with whom he'll be able to answer questions about biodiversity in the ocean. Together they pick plancton samples and watch them in a microscope discoveri
Battery uses archival footage, animated illustrations and amusing narration to explain: Why do we get a charge out of batteries?
In a polluted city a hedgehog searches for food. Nearby, a lonely cricket chirps, hoping to find a mate. But now he finds himself on the menu. An end of days animated comedy about an amorous cricket and a starving hedgehog who wants to eat the last cricket left in the world.
A short film exploring the longevity and limitations of artificial intelligence, and the loneliness of deep space.
Cathon proudly shows off her new glasses. Iris is at a loss for words—she's speechless with admiration. Where do eyeglasses even come from, and how did people first get them to stay on their noses?
What do X-rays, microwaves and light have in common?
Exploring the relationship between sound and picture, this film is inspired by the two lights (twi-light) found inside of film projectors. The animation was created by applying both sound and picture directly onto 35mm film. After the soundtrack was created, each individual sound was assigned a spec
Lightning uses archival footage, animated illustrations and amusing narration to explain: What causes the electrical discharge we see as lightning?
After the seas have disappeared, a courageous young pilot fights against vicious sky pirates for control of the last remaining source of water: the clouds.
In the warm light of a glowing filament the moving machine parts resemble spools, wires and gearwheels. A turntable with a numerical scale spins slowly and shows various readings, though their significance is never revealed. Details, parts of which are out of focus, appear on a black background, and
The Story of Mr. Plasticine Constantine Konovalov & Irina Neustroeva : (CA Teeter-totter-tam Animation) We are a team of animators from Russia. We love to experiment in the field of animation and video art. We create commercials, cartoons, movies, mainly using the technique of stop-motion and an int
Knietzsche believes that the future does not just happen, but is created by actions, thoughts and dreams. You cannot plan everything exactly because nobody knows the future. But good ideas will definitely make life better. So put the future in the best hands - in yours!
Cathon bakes Iris a very special kind of bread for her birthday, and pretty soon the two friends have gone down the rabbit hole, in search of the origins of bread. They even tell the tale of a whole army sculpted from bread.
The short 'How the Big Bang Governs the Texture of our Universe", asks viewers whether they've ever described the universe as smooth or bumpy. The texture– or the cosmological principle of how matter is distributed throughout the universe – helps physicists characterize the formation of
Four-year-old Shimako gets separated from her parents at Ikebukuro Station. Guided by an owl statue, she skips across Toshima Ward and embarks on a small adventure. Travelling back in time, she finds the no longer existing apartment where cartoonists once lived.
"It's like having thousands of pets!" Dish Life compares the task of raising stem cells in the lab to the challenge of looking after a gang of unruly kids. In conversation with real-life children, scientists show how tricky it is to work with these 'super cells'. Dish Life is the result of a collabo
Genius Marius Borodine's spectacular new invention that can transform any and all objects into drinkable water, bewilders the public, scientific communities, and the family of the misunderstood creator, especially after he takes one step too far.
After the death of her partner and the rest of the migrating butterflies, the last monarch survivor has one last message to tell humanity.
Art and science intersect in unexpected ways, as Da Vinci's experiments with flight lead him to the discovery of his most famous muse.
In the middle of a dry, desolate landscape stands Tower 37: a shimmering water processing station, siphoning every last drop of water from a once pristine lake. Day in and day out the station's lone steward monitors the tower's activities, never realizing that Tower 37 is slowly destroying an entire
Darwin is a very curious frog. En each episode our protagonist explores different subjects and issues that affect and endanger life and the environment. He also gives advices and suggestions about how to deal with catastrophic events and new challenges arising from climate change.
Sound Is Vibration uses archival footage, animated illustrations and amusing narration to explain what is the sound.
How Do They Make Potato Chips? is one of a series of short and snappy videos that reveal the mysteries behind everyday things. Almost every child likes to eat potato chips and will love to learn how they're made. (Bet you can't watch this video just once!)
The Wonderful World of Colour uses archival footage, animated illustrations and amusing narration to explain how the cones of the retina enable us to perceive the spectrum of colours.
The Moon Changes uses archival footage, animated illustrations and amusing narration to explain what causes the different phases of the moon.
A Spacetime Trilogy with Jared Kaplan is a series of three short films that ponder complex and deceptively simple questions about the formation and laws of our universe. Guided by host and theoretical physicist Jared Kaplan, and employing a distinct blend of scientific, metaphoric, and whimsical ani
When Milo's newest invention, the Reverse Microwave, actually turns out to be a time machine, he and his best friend Levi set out on an adventure through time.
Two refugee brothers live far from each other. The younger one, Joel, 12, is stuck alone in Athens, while the older has moved to Italy. Although it's hard to communicate, they share a common destiny.
Animals are quarreling: to go or not to go to the mountain. A serious incident has happened in the mountain.
How Do They Put the Centers in Chocolates? takes us on a visit to the factory to see the nuts and bolts (and cocoa!) of how these sweet treats are made.
Mirrors of Time delves into the mysteries of time: how calendars came to be; why the seasons change; why the year is divided into days, etc. From Babylon to 16th-century Europe, this film presents the history of the measurement of time.
The Force of Water uses archival footage, animated illustration and amusing narration to explain the Archimedes principle, of why some things float and others sink.
Off-Line is a short stop-motion animated film that I created and produced over four years. It tells about my relationship to work and how I understand it. The film is focused on a small orange capacitor named "IZ" that lives on the circuit-board control-panel of a microwave oven. The microwave is co
Creatures transform their own shapes innocently just as in a child's play. Tearing apart and uniting, this play continues endlessly.
A follow up refraction experiment featuring the Alphabet spoken by the late GREAT Richard Pryor.
The Cosmos. Mankind. The meaning of Life. Come play with us.
Freaks of Nurture is an animated short about a neurotic mother-daughter relationship inspired by the filmmaker's own unorthodox upbringing with her single-parent mom, who is also a foster parent and dog breeder. Self-deprecating and bursting with energy, the film reveals that no matter how grown-up
The State of the Matter uses archival footage, animated illustrations and amusing narration to explain how temperature affects the state of matter.
If we could shrink by 10 million times, we would be able to visit a living human cell, as if it were a small planet. In this movie, based on scientific data and an animation technique developed for biological visualization, viewers can get a glimpse of some of the wanders that such trip could offer.
Lift Off uses archival footage, animated illustrations and amusing narration to explain what makes a rocket lift off.
Quantum LOGOS (vision serpent) uses Mesoamerican culture as inspiration for design ideas used to explore quantum mechanics basics. This project uses abstract animated imagery to metaphorically represent the quantum world. I use this approach because of the parallels that are evident in the art and p
From the Big-Bang, to understanding our place in the cosmos, we explore the Universe through the imagination of children. "The Universe Within" is a 4 episode series for kids made by kids, and the protagonists explain different astronomical concepts using metaphors invented by them, and create theor