tim tom

December 5, 2005 8:05 AM

Tim Tom [QuickTime] is a charming CGI short film from 2003 that looks like stop-motion animation at first glance. More info here.
posted by Armitage Shanks (13 comments total)

Fascinating to watch... going to have to bookmark it so I can watch it with sound when I get home :)
posted by antifuse at 8:24 AM on December 5, 2005

Love the djano reinhardt soundtrack! Great find, Shanks.
posted by jonson at 8:34 AM on December 5, 2005

Very nice. I enjoyed the "sound track" gag... :)
posted by bullitt 5 at 8:39 AM on December 5, 2005

Excellent, thanks!
posted by dobbs at 8:49 AM on December 5, 2005

This IS good, thank you! Only funny thought is the human hand isn't as good an actor as TIM or TOM. Laughed to myself that I found his pointing and shuffling pretty dead and unconvincing compared to the very vibrant animation. How hard is it to hire a decent hand actor?
posted by Peter H at 9:02 AM on December 5, 2005

How hard is it to hire a decent hand actor?

I'm still not sure if the hand is computer-generated or not. At about 1/4 of the way in, when the arm is vertical with the finger tapping on the 'floor', it looks suspiciously smooth.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 10:47 AM on December 5, 2005

The hand is obviously CG.
posted by delmoi at 11:01 AM on December 5, 2005

Great video! The Mummenschanz reference was done very well. As for the hand, it appears to be guided by itself, the movie, and even the scenery, as evidenced by the eye which that's visible during the wall-crashing scene.
posted by Smart Dalek at 11:11 AM on December 5, 2005

The hand is obviously CG.

I disagree - you can see what looks like ghosting (aliasing) around it - also if it were animated it would move more fluidly and point directly at the characters. It looks like a human hand that mimicked holding and poking things which they brushed in the animation after the fact. Is my feeling anyway. Still, it's great fun! Just a stiff self-conscious hand to great natural CGI actors, so to speak.
posted by Peter H at 11:50 AM on December 5, 2005

This is really good! Wouldn't say stop motion, but I love the note book head idea, and the breaking out into the film.
posted by Orange Goblin at 12:08 PM on December 5, 2005

I first saw this a couple of years ago at Animated Exeter, an annual week-long animation/cartoon festival in the city.
(sorry about that site, it's horrible and not terribly informative, but the next festival is in February and every mote of exposure is worth it)

This was one of my favourites that year, and every year throws up several really truly amazing works. I've just called my gf through and asked her to tell me when she recognised it - about 2 seconds after seeing the street corner.
Unfortunately these types of animation are so small-scale that it's very hard to track down versions on the web, so I'm really pleased to have this one handed to me. Thanks AS.
posted by NinjaPirate at 12:39 PM on December 5, 2005

First class awesome.
posted by qwip at 3:49 PM on December 5, 2005

I'm not convinced the hand is CG. Look at 1:08 to 1:10. That looks suspiciously photo-real.

Excellent animation, regardless.
posted by pmbuko at 10:49 PM on December 5, 2005