Loading screens are beautifully frustrating in this stop-motion short

Loading screens are not totally a thing of the past yet, but on some days — when the LTE is strong and the Wi-Fi hotspots are plentiful — it can sure feel like it. That means it’s even possible to look back on some of them with a sense of nostalgia, like in this new stop-motion video from director / animator Raphael Vangelis.

Vangelis’ video, called “Analogue Loaders,” is a short ode to 30 different loading screens. Some, like Apple’s famous beach ball or the various Google Drive loading animations, are instantly recognizable. Others are a bit more obscure. All of them are beautiful, especially because Vangelis made the animations in the physical world, painstakingly 3D-printing (and in many cases, painting) every frame he created.

The two-minute short is mesmerizing, but it’s also occasionally agonizing thanks to what I’m going to start calling load screen PTSD. Still, if you think loading screens are exhausting, you should check out Raphael’s behind-the-scenes video (seen below) where he shows off how he made Analogue Loaders. Talk about a time suck.