To the ad agencies, I guess…

United Airlines, which previously brought us amazing paper animation in its Dragon ad, has a new series of animated commercials for the Beijing Olympics. They’re all set to the score of Rhapsody in Blue, which makes the ads seem a bit ponderous, but the animations themselves are lovely, ranging from almost abstract images using coloured salt or plasticine, to whimsical Magritte-like landscapes, to delicate paper cut-outs.

• “Sea Orchestra” Hand-drawn textures, photographs, CG, by Shy the Sun (South Africa)
• “Two Worlds” CG, live action, computer generation, hand-drawn art, by SSSR (Norway, Japan) and Gaelle Denis (France)
• “Heart” Stop-motion, paper puppetry, by James Caliri (US)
• “Moon Dust” Back-lit plasticine on glass plate, by Ishu Patel (Canada)
• “Butterfly” Coloured salt, by Aleksandra Korejwo (Poland)

(via Cartoon Brew)