Happy Trails Animation

02/06/2025

Since a lot of studios use music videos to play with techniques and styles I thought it would be fun to compile a collection of music videos that I know helped push new boundaries. A great song can create new worlds.

Hope you enjoy these Music Videos that changed animation.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJPhfKWpSA_bUm1gaGKYMQAk4hQymZP8q&si=at7A37h8F5jd45s-

Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

02/06/2025

Congratulations to another fun project!

Happy Trails Animation took on the challenge of creating with Ai in a collage like environment creating our own whimsical worlds. In the music video "Edge Of A Knife" the challenge was to pull from the Japanese styles of MANGA and Anime creating our own original styles. This music video is a fun exploration into these popular styles as we cut back and fourth between them. The only thing liner is the journey of the story. What a fun time we had and obviously the Telly folks thought so.

More about the process:

https://open.substack.com/pub/growingupaspen/p/a-new-world-for-music-videos?r=2g93c&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

25/05/2025

Ai is not the solution but Artist Assisted Ai is. The true fear artists have about Ai stealing their styles are right on track because right now Ai is working off of major systems considered open to anyone who wants to plug in which means you are working in a big vat of image goo.

However, now with the new Nvidia unit you can create your own closed Ai brain and train it only with promptings within your own art creations. Right now Ai is open which is why I used it with these music videos … they are not for sale, plus we did create our own unique styles.

I believe the answer to creating with Ai lies in the hybrid world. It’s up to the creative folks to take the lead. Our team is developing a new project and will be posting some teasers soon.
Here are a few hybrid style snippets from the fun things we are playing with.

23/05/2025

Over the years we have had many fun projects come through our studio. As I was recently looking through the vault I found what I think would make for some pretty fun and simple social media blast today.

This was something we(Happy Trails Animation) did while we were exploring with puppeteering in After Effects. This was another studio exploration project we did before we bumped into Jeff Krelitz and built a few great years of cutting edge motion comics. My how times have changed. Just fun to be part of the process.

22/05/2025

Perspective:

Remaining creative in a technology world!

By Andy Collen

20/05/2025

Happy Trails Animation just finished making 3 innovative music videos for Freezemachine, animated for their fantastic new songs: “Thought You Knew,” “Edge Of A Knife,” and, “It’s All Over.” Our challenge was to integrate Ai into our mixed-media styles to create specific worlds for each song. Our collage of interwoven imagery is reminiscent of videos created in the 80s and 90s by music video director, Jim Blashfield, for The Talking Heads’ “And She Was,” Paul Simon’s "Boy In The Bubble,” Tears For Fears’ “Sowing The Seeds Of Love,” and many more.

For this project we payed homage to those old Bond titles in silhouette. The second video played with the ranges of style between MANGA and Anima. And the latest on playing with an old style 3D like in the music video “Money For Nothing” from the Dire Straights and early Playstation.

Jim took photos with film and motion picture silhouette cameras, printed them out on Xerox machines, and assembled them into scenes so that every spinning element was from single animated element layered together.

For Freezemachine we created a hybrid of Ai and other complimenting softwares to create our own layered styles. By experimenting what I found was, right now Ai is not quite to where everyone fears in terms of being automated but we are close. We are also at a point with this tech where if we let evil take over... it will.

Ai is not the solution but Artist Assisted Ai is. The true fear artists have about Ai stealing their styles are right on track because right now Ai is working off of major systems considered open to anyone who wants to plug in which means you are working in a big vat of image goo. However, now with the new Nvidia unit you can create your own closed Ai brain and train it only with promptings within your own art creations. Right now Ai is open which is why I used it with these music videos … they are not for sale, plus we did create our own unique styles.

I believe the answer to creating with Ai lies in the hybrid world. It’s up to the creative folks to take the lead. I am developing a new project and will be posting some teasers soon.

Here are a few hybrid style snippets from the fun things we are playing with.

19/05/2025

Over the years we have had many fun projects come through our studio. As I was recently looking through the vault I found what I think would make for some pretty fun and simple social media blast today.

This was something we(Happy Trails Animation) did for an Ad Agency many moons ago. I think at the time they called these Cine-O-Matics.... animatics with some zip.

This was just before we bumped into Jeff Krelitz and built a few great years of cutting edge motion comics. My how times have changed. Just fun to be part of the process.

15/05/2025

Going through the vault of past test projects. Here is a fun one we did for an amazing painter Eric Joyner. I feel Eric's work is so powerful you could almost see the movement on the canvas, so animation was not that hard to approach.

Thanks for letting us play with your images Eric.

Motion Comics : The animated art of Eric Joyner.In 1999, I started to enter various juried shows at Artisans Gallery in Mill Valley, CA. and the work was wel...

09/05/2025

Developing a new project and will release more info as the project develops.

I thought it would be fun to see some animated short films that started many amazing careers.

It's not about where you start it's more about where we go with the creative process. Here are a few amazing jumps into the world of animation.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJPhfKWpSA_bQOF0p3xm4LrXaJlNFMyKG&si=mhNQOymsflRPTkTF

These are a collection of animated films that started some pretty great careers. These may not be their first film but the film that set the wheels in motion...

02/05/2025

Our new music video "It's All Over" is a tribute to old MTV videos like "Money For Nothing". The world environment we treated like "Money For Nothing" and the band and their nemesis is done in a early PS2 style. This one is for gamer's of all generations.

Check first comment!

Hope you Enjoy!

Freezemachine's new video for their single "It's All Over". Stream the song today - https://offstep.link/206170101315FOLLOW FREEZEMACHINE AT: Instagram: htt...

24/04/2025

Animated Short for the day!

An animated film based on the by Charles Bukowski. Paintings inspired by Basquiat,Banksy, Haring, and Weiwei represent the poem's theme of self-invention and...

04/03/2025

Another great project. Take on projects that you can be proud of like We've Got Your Back!