The faces we wear

July 30, 2010 11:51 AM

Faces, a short animation by Lei Lei (雷磊), an independent Chinese animator and designer. He's put most of his works on Vimeo, including a short TEDxShanghai talk he gave several months ago.

Cartoon Brew profile, with an embedded video profiling Lei Lei.
He was also recently at the Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film, where he rapped with Dan Silverman of Simpson's fame providing accompaniment on the tuba.
Via Anipages Daily

posted by zabuni (5 comments total)

From the profile video: "The technical skills that you're proud of now will eventually become outdated and useless."

That's pretty discouraging, but also freeing to hear someone say that.
posted by hanoixan at 12:32 PM on July 30, 2010

I think "The Face" is really about the failure of modern animators to come up with successful set of visual conventions for the face. The last breakthrough was the anime face (Astro boy), which replaced the animal-face conventions brought to such sophistication by WB and Disney animators. The anime face is ripe for retirement. Recent attempts at "building a better face" have not been satisfying. They either fall into the uncanny valley, or reveal too much of their geometric matrix. By contrast, surface textures and backgrounds in modern animation are continually improving, getting more realistic, more innovative and more artistic. The face, however, stubbornly resists innovation. Lei Lei's "The Face" solves the problem in a novel way -- too bad he can only use it once.
posted by Faze at 1:54 PM on July 30, 2010

Great animation, thanks!
posted by abc123xyzinfinity at 2:42 PM on July 30, 2010

From the profile video: "The technical skills that you're proud of now will eventually become outdated and useless."

Also, your body and mind will deteriorate, you will die, and worms will eat your remains.
posted by drjimmy11 at 7:52 PM on July 30, 2010

Finally got a chance to watch this, and that was great. Plus the song at the end had some really tight beats. Great FPP.
posted by yeloson at 10:23 PM on August 4, 2010