Stop Motion with Heart

Ainslie Henderson is a stop motion animator with a big heart, a keen sense of humor, and a number of unresolved childhood issues. His work will break your heart in the best way.

The Scottish artist won a BAFTA Best New Artist Award in 2013 for It’s About Spending Time Together, a short that doubles as a long overdue apology to his brother:

I Am Tom Moody, which was nominated for the Best Short BAFTA Award this year, is a battle between the self-doubting voices in the head of an amateur musician.

While Moody is not overtly autobiographical, Henderson can identify with the musician in it. He first made a name for himself in 2002 on the UK reality show Fame Academy(sort of a cross between Big Brother and American Idol). Although he didn’t win, the show led to a pop hit and short-lived deal with Mercury Records. Dissatisfied with how his career was going, Henderson enrolled in theEdinburgh College of Art. Moody was one of the films he prepared for graduation.

But his time in the music business wasn’t for naught. A decade after connecting with the band James, Henderson has created a video for Moving On,a single off their new album. The short film manages to express some of most intimate human moments of death and life, all in yellow yarn.