Motomichi, a Japanese-based artist and animator, created this 30-second promo clip for this past summer’s Japan Cuts film festival. It features his signature black, white and red palette.

Not inspired enough yet to submit your video to the Radiohead Video Contest? Well perhaps Motomichi Nakamura can whip you into shape. His new Flash-animated music video for Temposhark’s track Blame keeps it simple - using black, white and red colors to create a lasting impression. Head over to SubmarineChannel to watch the full video.

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The design Mecca known as Pictoplasma is calling for submissions for their 2006 Characters in Motion film festival. Last year’s festival featured animation from many Flash animators featured on CHF including Aaron Stewart, Airside Studios, Bernard Derriman, Foreign Office, Hornet Inc, Monkeyhub, Motomichi Nakamura, Nathan Jurevicius and Tokyoplastic.

Download the application form here (PDF), and if someone can find a deadline, please post it - ’cause I couldn’t.

Motomichi Nakamura is perhaps the most unique Flash animator I’ve come across. He’s a painter, a VJ (a video jockey), an illustrator and an animator. He recently produced two animated commercials for the Polish mobile phone service Heyah. The campaign is called ‘Simloki Game Over,’ and both animations feature Moto’s signature red/black/white color scheme, this time illuminating Heyah aliens with cell phones on the attack. They aired on Polish TV and in movie theaters over a six week period. (view ‘UFO’ - view ‘Simloki’)

But this isn’t the first time Moto’s work has been tapped by the TV networks. Last Summer, MTV’s Beach House website hosted a Super Mario Bros-esque scrolling Flash game called ‘Crashathon’ that was built around Motomichi’s character designs. And MTV2 included his short station IDs on during their broadcasts.

His VJ sets often include his Flash work, and his progressive, online Flash pieces, like ‘Walk,’ are more art installations than animated shorts.

Motomichi currently lives in Brooklyn and he was recently interviewed for Pixelsurgeon, where he discussed software preferences:

Do you create the animations entirely in Flash?
Mainly Flash. I use Illustrator because of the vector drawing tools. And then for certain things with the editing and sound, I’ll use After Effects. But, I’m happiest working with Flash because you can render it right away. With After Effects you have to wait to render it, and that is frustrating.