BIG BANG BIG BOOM – the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Animator Blu has come up with a very unique form of animation. I’ve seen it called “stop-motion wall painting,” “wallimation,” and various other terms. In the case of “Bing Bang Big Boom,” Blu’s latest video, I kind of like the term “urban animation,” since the whole city environment is Blu’s canvas. This is yet another technique where creating a new frame destroys the previous one and a single mistake can ruin hours worth of work. I love how seemingly effortlessly the animation moves between surfaces and dimensions and the basic premise provides enough of a story to keep viewers engaged. The amount of time this must of taken to both plan and create the actual and obtain permission to paint on the various buildings and sidewalks, is staggering.

With so much animation defined as either hand-drawn or computer, it’s always wonderful to see a piece like this that reminds us how much more the medium can be.