Garuda, animated by the students of Les Gobelins, found via KN.

Animation was one of those things I was never good at. Having had a thorough three term dosage of it in the form of classes in school, it left me with two things, feelings that fall on two polar sides of the knife edge.

The first was the most natural reaction, the feeling of not wanting to immerse myself into the extremely tedious task of. Ever again I said, or well, at least not for the near future. I remember a professor in school mentioning that the job of animation was for those anal people, with the inclination to punish themselves, I couldn’t agree more.

What followed this almost unanimous dislike for the medium was the capacity to appreciate it in only the way someone whose made, or tried making one could. Suddenly the Sunday Morning cartoons my niece would watch looked exponentially more amazing, and I remember a particularly artsy black and white episode of Samurai Jack leaving me floored.

Garuda, in a gist, is a simple short about an Indian boy who chases his dreams. There are techniques at work here that I can’t even begin to explain, and more so imagine being done to the extent that it was.

The minute of stunning visuals that resulted from it speak for itself. One thousand four hundred forty frames, give or take a few. Each one frozen could stand alone as a beautiful piece of artwork, but when strung together, make for quite a masterpiece.