Australian band Abe & Tell's video for their song "This Man's Brighter Days" uses a neat animation gimmick: most of the video is displayed, frame-by-frame, on a tablet held up by various strangers the band approached on the streets of Sydney, with some nice cutaway shots to the video being edited, all pieced together to seem like one continuous shot. It's quite an effect, one that really commands all of your visual attention.

abe&tell - one shot stop motion with 500+ girls! (via Reddit)

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MORE: australia • happy mutants • music • reddit • videos

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http://www.youtube.com/user/ziccup akbar56

Nicely done, but I wonder if I am the only one who watched more of the cute girls holding the tablet than I did the actual video.
- Gimlet_eye
  
  So you noticed that all those “various strangers” were pretty girls, too? And that the “tablet” was an iPad? As if it would somehow be better not to mention those specifics.
  - teapot
    
    “Strangers” and “girls” are not mutually exclusive groups. An ipad is a tablet.
    
    Do you have any further questions?
    - Gimlet_eye
      
      Then I suppose “an object held by various mammals” would also work, since “strangers” and “mammals” aren’t mutually exclusive groups, and iPads are objects.
      
      The technical correctness was not my point, which was the somewhat awkward and obvious generalities. To be fair, though, some months back there was a BB post with a caption mentioning the “Asian woman” in the clip that produced some rather overheated comments about “racism” and “sexism,” so maybe vagueness is an effort to avoid such kerfuffles.
  - penguinchris
    
    There were actually several guys as well, unless young girls in Australia sometimes grow ratty facial hair.
- http://profiles.google.com/stephen.schenck Stephen Schenck
  
  I’d love to see output from an eye-tracker to my reaction to the video; it felt like my focus kept jumping all over the pace.
- Boundegar
  
  There was a tablet?
benenglish

I like this a great deal. Kudos.

It makes me sad and gives me hope at the same time. 35-40 years ago, when photography was expensive, I could take my Nikon F out on the street and meet girls, easy as pie. I’m sad that those days are gone for me; now I’d just be “the old perv”. I’m hopeful, though, to see that there are some young men still using that old shtick to meet young women, even though photography is now digital, cheap, and ubiquitous. Good on you, guys.
- blueelm
  
  I just wish for a day when I can walk around my neighborhood with my Nikon and not get mistaken for a hooker because “hey, who else walks around on the street while being female?”
moop2000

Yes, and by “various strangers”, you really mean lots of cute, young girls :p I think I saw a guy in the group, but I can’t be sure!
- Geoduck
  
  One of them had a beard, but that’s not 100% conclusive..
Pope Ratzo

I guess there are no black girls in Abe and Tell’s “Brighter Day”.

They’re an Australian band, right? I guess it’s possible that there are no black women in Sydney. Or maybe Abe and Tell just don’t see them.
- chgoliz
  
  Or women over 24.
  
  There was one guy, so I guess that means it’s not sexist or anything.
- http://whimsicalacious.tumblr.com/ Patrick McGorrill
  
  I found one right after 1:22. Sure are a lot of pale skins tho.
- intererro
  
  I thought (as a Sydneysider) that it was a fairly accurate representation of inner Sydney. Predominantly white, a fair showing of asian, and some middle eastern. Maybe one or two people of African descent.
  
  There’s not a big black population here, our history is different to the USA. And the areas with a high-density of immigrants tend to be the western suburbs, not the built-up urban areas.
  - teapot
    
    U mean other countries don’t have the same racial breakdown as Amerika!?
    OMG! REVELATIONS!
    
    /Sydneysider snark
  - Pope Ratzo
    
    No black population in Sydney? Why is that? Where are all the indigenous Australians? I think they’re called “aboriginals”. Don’t they qualify? To them, YOU are the “immigrants”.
    
    Hey, I’ve got nothing against a couple of young would-be pop musicians coming up with a clever way to meet cute girls, but “This Man’s Brighter Days” can be taken two ways.
franko

don’t they have any men in sydney??
- blueelm
  
  Maybe they’re all just REALLY ugly.
  - http://www.kmoser.com kmoser
    
    Or REALLY pretty.
    - teapot
      
      We are the second gayest city after SF.
freshyill

iPad. The word is iPad. Tablet is some generic thing that’s not an iPad. Why is Cory afraid to say iPad?
- http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith
  
  Because the application doesn’t require an apple tablet?
- Gimlet_eye
  
  Haven’t you heard that closed source is TEH EBIL?
- teapot
  
  Because he’s not a shill for anyone?
  
  If your friend asks what you want to drink do you say the alcohol type, or the brand? If it’s the brand you either:
  a) Have picky tastes
  b) Love being a marketer’s biatch
  - freshyill
    
    That’s to say that every bottom-shelf swill as the same as a liquor of quality. Banker’s Club vodka is not the same as Tito’s. Sure, they both fit the definition of vodka, but if I can choose, I’m picking Tito’s. What the hell is wrong with having picky tastes?
    
    So if I prefer a brand that means I’m a slave to marketing? Bullshit. I know this will sound crazy, but some people can recognize quality.
http://twitter.com/BongBong BongBong

Like the band “OK Go”, the concept of the video is far more interesting than the appeal of the music and in this case, both music and video are marginal.
crackerzack

that was an amazing 3 minutes of cute girls smiling at me – its going on my list of videos to make me feel better when i am down.
devinbarry

I think every music video should end with people cheering for you because, hey, you did it.
aminev

Unfortunately the execution of this video comes through as creepy….
- blueelm
  
  All my exes live in Sydney?
Gavin Smith

this man is a dique-hed.
AllyPally

Clever way to rescue a not-very-good video. I like the apparently recursive bit near the end.
http://twitter.com/JesseJamz Jesse

Girls in Sydney like to stick out their tongues.
zoestercoaster

Racist hipster headdress. I’m out.
- Pope Ratzo
  
  Thank goodness. I thought I was the only one to mention the extremely pale elephant in the room.
  - DSarge001
    
    is australian remember, i wouldn’t think it holds the same cultural baggage
GenErik

Love the way you go out of your way to mention the i-word. There is no tablet market, only an iPad market.
dragonfrog

In somewhat the same vein, this video by my friend’s band…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuBlEcJOJA0
cakey pig

I love posh white girls
http://twitter.com/there_from_here John Carter

The band I Am Giant did something very similar at the last Auckland Big Day Out earlier this year – in their case they used printouts for the frames rather than a tablet and I think they got a nicer effect:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkkeY7CuJi8&feature=player_embedded#!

(and they didn’t just shoot pretty girls ;)

Stop motion music video uses hundreds of strangers holding up a tablet on the streets of Sydney

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