Although, seeing as how the overwhelming majority of viewers watch the films online (there will be a 2D version online in September), it’s difficult to see how the added 3D novelty will be of much benefit to the casual online viewer. Someone ought to be looking at how to translate 3D entertainment to the web experience. Oh well, here’s to great filmmaking!

Philips Press Release:

The new 3D film continues the ‘Parallel Lines’ campaign and will promote Philips’ cinematic range of 3D LED TVs, including the world’s first Full HD 3D cinema proportion LED TV, Cinema 21:9 Platinum Series, which launches later this summer. Philips’ creative agency DDB UK is collaborating with award-winning Vision3@ Compendium to manage the creative and technical aspects of the shoot and post-production. The ‘Parallel Lines’ campaign won the 2010 inaugural Cannes Lions Grand Prix for Film Craft.

The 3D film will be revealed in September and will be supported by an in-store retail experience. A 2D version of the film will also be presented on Philips.com and  YouTube. Exclusive footage of how the film was made, including interviews with the director and crew, will be released on Philips Cinema’s Facebook page during the build up to the premiere in September.

The ‘Parallel Lines’ campaign, which launched in April, challenged directors from RSA to respond to a single dialogue to demonstrate that whatever content is watched, only Philips TVs’ Ambilight technology, award-winning picture quality and superior sound, can recreate the best cinematic viewing experience at home. Since April, the 5 ‘Parallel Lines’ films have been watched over 5 million times. For this 6th film, RSA’s Barney Cokeliss was challenged to submit a treatment for a short 3D film based upon the same single dialogue.

The dialog, in case you were wondering, is a short six lines:

“What is that? It’s a unicorn. I’ve never seen one up close before. Beautiful. Get away, Get away. I’m sorry.”

In fact, if you think you can make something compelling from these lines, why not submit a film to the Tell It Your Way competition (ends August 8th). Wealth and riches await the winning film.

Latest work from Tomas Mankovsky who previously directed Sorry I’m Late.

Tomas Mankovsky’s new video “Ritalin” for Dancing Pigeons as part of Diesel:U:Music, is a foreboding yet strangely humorous depiction of a seemingly pointless modern day sword fight.

“Duels fascinate me. It used to be a popular thing, but in modern days it has died out. So I thought that probably somewhere in the States, some hillbillies are still doing it, their way.”

Press Release:

The Vimeo Festival and Awards will be a celebration of the best original and creative video that has premiered online. Our goal is to reward the individual creators behind online video and acknowledge the internet as a quality medium of expression and distribution. And of course, we’re going to do it in style.

The awards will be open to anyone who has premiered their work on any online platform. This isn’t just a Vimeo thing, it’s a video thing, and we’re opening it up to everyone. The festival will then highlight the best of online video in an exciting offline environment for all to attend. We’re cooking up some pretty cool stuff for these events, folks, and we can’t wait to tell you more about our plans.

Inane first question, but when I see a film with such a distinct visual style I can’t help but wonder as to its genesis—did you have a story idea that spoke to you which you worked out first, or was the idea of creating this stylized future noir world the spark?

The idea of combining Film Noir and Sci-Fi is of course nothing new and we’ll always wear the Blade Runner influence proudly on our sleeve. Having watched a few Anime films back to back over a weekend (namely Osamu Tezuka’s, Metropolis) I wanted to make something that embraced the clichés of film noir. Where Blade Runner combines noir and sci-fi in a very sophisticated way I wanted to literally take 1940’s noir and combine that with sci-fi. With that environment in mind, a friend and I started to storyboard a chase scene between a gumshoe and a robot, each drawing a panel and then handing it to the other to draw the next and seeing where that took us. I devised the rest of the story around this scene.


What were your visual influences for the piece?

The first and biggest influence is traditional film noir, films like The Big Sleep or The Maltese Falcon. I also drew a lot of inspiration from animation – the Animatrix shorts, Second Renaissance and Detective Story influenced me heavily as did Cowboy Bebop.



Can’t have a good film without talented people, how did you get the film team together?

Almost the entire crew was made up of people I had worked with before or crew that other members of the crew recommended. Most of the art department were friends from a TV show, Doctor Who, that I have worked on in the past.

Before I took any crew on I had produced nearly all the concept art, designs and storyboards and this is always a great way to pitch the project to people, giving them a taste for how the project will look and what we are all aiming for.





We have a lot of indie filmmakers who read this site, so if you would describe just a bit the process of incorporating VFX into films, especially CG composited with live-action. At what point are you bringing in the animators and what kind of role do they have in pre-production and production?

As a production we got the VFX team, headed up by Jon Rennie, on board very early on in pre-production. At this point I had already storyboarded the film and it was a case of going through every shot and talking about the best way to achieve the desired effect. Sometimes it would be a case of changing the compositions slightly or shooting completely clean plate shots, but by doing this very early on and sticking to the boards for all the VFX shots we managed to achieve about 95% of what I wanted to achieve and on an almost non existent budget.

During the shoot we had nearly the entire VFX team on set, mainly to take measurements from the location for elements they were going to have to either rebuild or “track in”. VFX supervisor Jon Rennie would stay by my side for most of the day, checking the monitor for anything that may give them problems in post-production. Due to the small budget we had to make particularly sure that we did everything we could during the one-day shoot to make the VFX run smoothly during post-production.

Organization and collaboration between all the departments really helped us in terms of making the one-day shoot as productive as it could have been and giving the post teams a fighting chance at completing all the VFX to the high standards we were looking for.


A lot of people seem to think that it’s shot with digital sets, and I alluded to that a little in my review, but that not the case is it?

The entire film was shot on location without a green screen in sight. We did this to both give the film a foot in reality and to save the VFX team from building entire 3D sets. We didn’t plan to shoot against green and chose instead to find locations that gave us enough of an environment to shoot the actors against but also had the potential to digitally extend upwards into the matte shots.  The VFX break down is a good example of how we took real locations in the UK and twisted them enough to give the feel of a larger city.



This is a question I dislike because often pro labor is donated and you don’t want to belittle that effort, but it is something people like to make a big deal about, so… what did the film end up costing to make?

The total budget we had to play with was £5,000 pounds sterling, but we did of course have a lot of work done in kind. The budget was mostly spent on essential professional crew and equipment that we needed to give the film the polished look we were trying to achieve.


In your day job you work on a lot of big-name action features. What does the job of Concept Designer entail? How, if it all, did such work help you when it came to making Reign of Death?

Working as a concept designer entails designing or visualizing elements of a feature film script that do not already exist. So generally you work on genre films that need heavy visualization. These drawings can be used to help sell the look of a feature to a studio or as designs for sets, props or creatures when a film is in pre-production. I’m currently working on X-Men: First Class at Pinewood studios, London.

My concept design background helped me make Reign of Death because it enabled me to conceptualize and storyboard the film myself. This helped me get the buy in I needed from the crew but also meant we didn’t have to pay for this work to be done out of the budget!


Its my understanding that the film was created through a UK Film Program called “It’s My Shout!” What’s that about?

“It’s My Shout” is a fantastic film-making scheme here in the UK that gives many up and coming directors, writers and other crew the opportunity to make short films. I directed a short film for them in 2007 and once I had raised the funds for Reign I approached them to see if I could make the short in association with them. As I am not a producer and didn’t have time to crew up from scratch I wanted to work with a production team I had worked with before.



A couple of the feature films I compared Reign of Death to, Sin City and Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow, started out as short films too. Was the idea of the Reign of Death serving as a proof of concept to pitch, something that had always been in your mind?

I didn’t ever see the short as a feature and was just keen to make it for my show reel or as a calling card. Noel Clarke, who had seen and liked the storyboards back in 2006 when we had both been working on Doctor Who, had always been keen to be involved. When I called him and asked if he would still like to be in the short film he said he would but only on the condition that we developed it as a feature project! In the years since I had seen him he had become a feature writer and director in his own right, not to mention won a Bafta so he was now clearly setting his sights much higher. With that in mind, every member of the crew stepped up their game knowing that if we did a good job on the short, we may have a shot at a feature.



Thanks Matt!


Watch Reign of Death

Blu is back with another monumental graffiti animation. They seem to grow larger in scale each time (duration too, Big Bang Big Boom is nearly 15 minutes of hand-painted stop motion!). Before I jump in, there’s another topic I’d like to illuminate here: the short filmmaker’s overly-grandiose sophomoric slump.

Blu is reaching that point where an artist, boxed in by initial success around a signature style, wishes to tell a larger, more important story that transcends their early explorations—an opus, a Lawrence of Arabia. Some succeed, others don’t. And I think I know what separates the two. I remember seeing Don Hertzfeldt’s The Meaning of Life for the first time and feeling disappointingly underwhelmed by an otherwise very talented animator. Don’s work is great. He has an impeccable filmography under his belt—except for The Meaning of Life. Why? Because Don’s best work is about the subtleties in life that go unnoticed. For filmmakers like Don and Blu, these big, grand stories are much too generic. We’re drawn to these filmmakers because of their ability to reveal and extrapolate on the nuances of life not ponder its ultimate existence.

In Big Bang Big Boom, Blu takes his first foray into stringing his signature anamorphic animation style into something of a cohesive story. Wisely, he doesn’t over-complicate the narrative, but rather uses a simple theme of evolution in which to craft his street characters. Though it might initially come off as a bit grandiose, try not to take it too seriously. Glance over the larger story and spend your time with his fascinating images like the shark eaten by a group of smaller fish in the shape of a shark or the evolution of mankind told through weaponry.

Blu’s real story is in his technique which he uses to great effect. It’s nothing new. This film with these techniques could have been made 50 years ago—even 100. And yet it’s completely new. No one has so freely moved across urban wastelands from painted walls to duct work to trash and other objects. Never before has such a desolate setting breathed such life. It’s that innocently antiquated yet boldly fresh quality that makes it so mesmerizing. Enjoy the next 15 minutes of your day.

Still from Bastien Dubois’ Madagascar.

This is not your normal wishy-washy, un-curated online collection mind you, these 40 films: 16 live-action narratives, 14 animations, 7 experimental films, and 3 documentaries, were culled from 1,200 submissions, meaning you get to see some of the most decorated short films on the festival circuit today. Many of these films I know by reputation as they’ve been racking up prestigious honors and awards, but did not imagine I would get a chance to see anytime soon; animations like Madagascar and Mei Ling, or live-action films like Edmund Yeo’s Love Suicides. If one signs up, it is possible to grade, rank and create playlists with the films, which lead to the experimental short Bites of Skin, being declared the audience choice winner.

Those would be my initial choices for getting started, but I’m just getting started myself. As always feel free to use the comments lend us your thoughts and help us all know which films to watch!

Visit FluxusOnline

The Un-Gone his based around a strong idea ripe with moral dilemmas. Where did your inspiration for the film come from?

Well I’d been trying to come up with an idea for a science fiction short for a UK Film Council scheme for a few weeks. Something different but achievable within the form. I wasn’t getting anything that really pleased me. I’d planned a few days away in Venice with my girlfriend and we were waiting for a flight. It had been delayed a couple of hours, thick fog at Venice apparently. I suggested to her that it was a shame science hadnít yet delivered a means of transport as quick as the Transporter in Star Trek, no problem with fog there! So I think I filed that away subconsciously. I went looking for a cup of tea and all my fellow travellers were also aimlessly wondering around the concourse and shops, glazed, bored, looking for diversion. I said we were the un-gone. At an airport to travel, on the other side of security, but unable to go anywhere. And bang. The two thoughts collided. Had the script outlined by the time we got to Marco Polo airport.

I think those are the best ideas, the ones that just come. Sometimes you can sweat over an idea for ages trying to flog it into shape, shoehorn some moral or thematic core into it and the thing is like a landed fish. Dead on the dock. Easy to say I know, hard to do. The script for The Un-Gone still took thirteen drafts to bring all those moral dilemmas out though.

Do you have any favorite moments in making the film? What part of the process do you enjoy most?

Making a film is in itself the best fun you can have with your clothes on. So moments tend to blur into the process. I was lucky to work with a terrific bunch of people making it. The production designer, Bridget Dowty, and I had a huge challenge turning a disused Victorian hospital into a cutting edge transportation hub. That was hairy, hard work and also very satisfying. I’d like to say we saw a ghost but we didn’t. The police used to train in there so we kept finding rubber bullets which was pretty cool. Iíve still got some if you want one.

The bit I enjoy the most is the moment you say “action”. The blood is pumping, adrenalin has sharpened your decision-making faculties to a fine point. All the hard work is done, all the prep. As they say in magic, the work is done, all that is needed now is to perform the trick. I like to work fast then, don’t do too many takes, try different things, give myself options for the edit.

Your film has toured many festivals, what are your thoughts around posting it online now? Would are your thoughts around digital distribution? Can it work?

We didn’t post The Un-Gone online until recently basically because we wanted to explore all other distribution options first. We were lucky and it touched a nerve with audiences and festival programmers and it played in almost 70 festivals, literally all over the world. On the way it garnered eight awards and I don’t know what that says about me or the film but it has to say something. We also had DVD distribution in the States (via Dark Matter). That wouldn’t have happened if it was free to view on the internet from the outset.

But I think digital distribution is going to become more and more important. I’m not sure anyone knows what the future model is right now. The Un-Gone was shot on HD. I’d stake my life on a bet that the overwhelming proportion of film is now shot that way, a total digital work flow. There are digital formats that replicate, if not surpass, the image quality of film. It’s cheaper, faster and easier to produce. I’m sure it’s cheaper and easier to send a film as a computer file to a cinema than it is an unwieldy film print.

I think digital exhibition is done now in China and South America and let’s face it schools, film societies and some art house cinemas in the UK are showing digitally now. It just makes sense for the major distributors to follow suit. Logistics will be cheaper and in the long run enable a greater number of films, with perhaps a smaller audience potential, to gain distribution as the costs of getting them to market will be in keeping with their anticipated revenue. It seems we’re at the cusp of a change similar to one the music industry has already gone through. And I for one welcome it with open arms. The Un-Gone is after all about the ultimate digital distribution.

What’s next for you?

The Un-Gone was a while ago now so I have already moved on. Finished another short last year, Studs, which despite its title isn’t about anything sexual. It’s a thriller set during a Rugby Union match—that’s football without helmets for the Americans in the audience. And I’m also developing two feature films with independent producers in the UK, one a science fiction thriller and the other a horror. And of course I’m developing the feature version of The Un-Gone. Reactions, feedback and encouragement are very very positive. Can’t say more but it’s going well.

Do you have any favorite films that our readers should immediately go see online?

Ah that’s a question. Films online, ah. Well I always watch the ones you guys publicise and I browse Vimeo. There are some incredible short films, mood pieces and experiments on there.

I think everyone is attracted to their own thing and I’d hate to suggest something that someone checks out then doesn’t enjoy. But alright there are a couple that stick in my mind which are on YouTube I think. 10 minutes by Ahmed Imamovic which when it starts you think is a light hearted tourist comedy but that soon changes to something much darker and visceral. Ten minutes in one person’s life means nothing, but for someone else those same minutes can be life changing. Itís brave, bold and a stunning example of a director handling shot logistics.

Scene from the film White Red Panic

Similarly White Red Panic, written, directed, and edited by Ayz Waraich pithily and succinctly explores the fatal consequences of a moral choice in a neat little thriller. Starts with a bang, ends with….well check it out.

The Un-Gone played in a festival with a film called Tarot by John Condon, it’s only 17 seconds but I thought it was hilarious. I’m sure that must be online. Oh and yeah I saw a New Zealand short called The French Doors ages ago, chilled me to the bone, still remember it. Wonder if that’s online?

Thanks go out to Simon for taking the time to chat. You can check out his website for further news and updates on his projects.

MARS! from Joe Bichard and Jack Cunningham on Vimeo.

This stylized, short animation by Joe Bichard and Jack Cunningham tells the painfully familiar tale of one species colonizing another and sucking its resources dry. The environmental message can’t help but conjure up connections to the ongoing oil leakage that’s devastating the southern US coastlines. The animation style itself is very minimal, almost pictographic, in it’s approach. There is no dialogue and none is needed. I can image this format working well as a universal form of communication—the airport signage of story-telling.

It’s almost summer, and we’re heading into the thick of the festival season. A pretty big one just wrapped up in Toronto over the weekend, the Worldwide Short Film Festival, which bills itself as the largest short film festival in North America and is an Academy Awards-qualifier to boot.

None of the live-action winners are online, but I did spot this year’s Best Animated Film, a gentle and lovely film out of France, Le Silence Sous l’écorce by Joanna Lurie.

The film is pretty, and has some interesting sequences, but at 11 min it stretches the attention span a bit. If you’re a general fan of shorts you could probably skip, but if you’re an animation buff, like a few of us on staff here at SotW, you’ll definitely want to check it out. I’ve linked to Vimeo, which is a site I prefer, but also note that Babelgum signed an agreement with the festival this year to showcase many of the entries, and there could be some good picks in there if you’re feeling adventurous.

To keep you abreast of notable developments in the world of short film, I’ll weigh in on what has become a well-reported event on the internets—on Monday IGN released on its website a 30 min short film comprised solely of footage from the video game Red Dead Redemption, a dark and bloody Western released by Rockstar, the company famous for Grand Theft Auto.

This concept, known as machinima, is not really novel, there is a dedicated subculture surrounding it. What has gotten people’s attention in this case was that John Hillcoat, director of the dark western, The Proposition, and the recent film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, is the creator of the film. The film also enjoyed a TV broadcast, playing at midnight, May 26th on the Fox network.

I’m a little fuzzy on the details of what “directing” such a film entails, it seems to me more an exercise in editing, but that may be my ignorance speaking. There does seem to be a certain degree of in-game camera control and scene manipulation possible. It helps Hillcoat certainly that his own films seem to have been studied well by the game designers going in. However the limitations of plot are severe. The film basically retells the game’s 1st act in a stylistic manner, following the hero, John Marston, as he hunts down his old partner, the vicious outlaw Bill Williamson.

Your curiosity may be piqued by all of this, but try to resist. This film is rather bad. As someone who has yet to join this latest video-game console generation, (a Wii doesn’t really count) I did enjoy seeing the remarkable advances that have been made, however, the film suffers in most every possible way: the dialogue is stilted, the vocal performances poor, the plot is riddled with cliches, and ultimately the fact that is is whittled down from from longer, further separated plot episodes means that the film feels disjointed, as settings and events occur with poor rhythm and little sense for how they fit the whole.

All these issues might be forgivable in a shorter film, one that hews closer to the concept of a trailer, which is what this film really is, but at 29 minutes it took everything I had to simply finish. This isn’t a knock on Hillcoat per se. I have not delved into this world much, and have certainly not tried to make a machinima of my own. The fact that the film is visually coherent, has a modicum of style and that the fight scenes by and large have a a good rhythm could very well be an impressive achievment, it’s just not a ton of fun for your average fan to sit through.

Watch Red Dead Redemption Machinima at:   IGN

This short animation by Joaquin Baldwin is about a man with a passion for origami that sets out to change his his busy, urban environment. Baldwin of course wowed everyone last year with his followup to Papiroflexia, Sebastian’s Voodoo, the amazing 3-D short animation which won the NFB’s 2009 Cannes competition among a slew of other awards,

The style is worlds different from Sebastian’s Voodoo though, favoring a tactile, paper cut-out look. This kind of diversity is great to see in a young animator, and now I’m super-keen on a legitimate Filmmaker Update in the future. Speaking of the NFB Cannes contest, as I was poking around in the Screening Room, I noticed surprisingly that most of this year’s contestants, including the winner, Crash! Bang! Wallow? are still up. Maybe because they are in the Screening Room, they will stick around for the long haul this year. If you haven’t checked them out, do so, especially Love & Theft, Andreas Hykade’s surreal and awesome music animation, that deserves a longer post to itself sometime in the future.

We’ve been taking it easy the last month, but we’re ready to kick it into high gear again with quality recommends. First though I want to weigh in on a couple of the high profile films that have come along in these last few weeks.

The Raven is joining a fine tradition of small budget sci-fi shorts with slick production that have broken through to more mainstream audiences, having been featured on FirstShowing, Slash, and a bunch of related websites. The archetype for this type of film is of course Neill Blomkamp of District 9 fame with his short Alive in Joberg, but Fede Alvarez with Panic Attack and more recently Carl Erik Rinsch with The Gift, are members emeritus. The Raven, shot lean and mean for 5k in the streets of LA using a RED camera, definitely achieves the look and attitude of films of this trend.

At 6 minutes, the film is basically an extended chase. In a futuristic, or least alternate LA, the city has descended into a police state, overseen by an increasing array of sci-fi weaponry. One man, Chris Black, codenamed The Raven, is targeted by the police, but chooses to run. The reason he is being hunted reveals itself throughout the chase via special effects, and the whole sequence is conceived and executed well, with a a little parkour thrown in for good measure.

The Raven is fun, but it isn’t really on the level of the previously mentioned films. The overall level of the compositing is a touch lacking, and the mechanical designs owe too much to certain high profile forebearers. Personally I feel the ellipsis ending is a cop out as well.

However the film is brisk, looks beautiful and grabs you from the get go. As a sci-fi fan I can say that I was gripped from beginning to end, a sign of quality filmmaking of the old school style, courtesy of director Ricardo de Montreuil.

A niggling feeling bothers me though. Even while films of this ilk are bring short film a new level attention that has been sorely lacking,I can’t help but be disturbed at the nakedness of their appeal. Short Film has often been dismissed as a “calling card” and these films live up to that criticism. More and more they jettison dialogue, character, even plot in favor of pure action. At what point do we cease to even call these works short films anymore and declare them what they seem to really be—trailers for some unidentified future project?

I’ll be upfront, this is not a free film. It is available for $1 from Mubi, the new name of the website “The Auteurs”,  a nice service which fills a niche by video streaming art films. So is this film so uncommonly excellent that I need to share it with you irregardless? Not exactly, however you may have heard the news—Cannes is over and the coveted Palme D’or, arguably the most prestigious award in all of filmdom, has been awarded to Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul for his film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. Weerasethakul’s victory has been portrayed as a surprise by the main-stream media, however to a follower of world cinema the name is well known; perhaps only Jia Zhangke, featured before on this site, has received the kind of critical adoration that Weerasethakul has. And so, if you have failed to connect the dots up to this point, look at the title again; this short is an accompaniment to that award-winning feature, and thus I feel it is worth comment.

A Letter to Uncle Boonmee is a sort of introductory statement to the feature. It checks in at 16min and consists of a hypnotically roving camera that pans the interior of homes in a small deserted village in North East Thailand by the name of Nabua. Multiple actors take the place of the director, reading out a letter to Uncle Boonmee, a man who has had multiple reincarnations, but uniquely has stayed in Nabua through all of them. The feature film, which I have not seen, evidently focuses on Uncle Boonmee, exploring 6 of these lives he’s had, which from my understanding, include a water buffalo, a cow, and ghost among other states of being.

This short film which preceded the completion of the feature, serves as a message, a visual “letter” to Uncle Boonmee, stating Weerasethakul’s intention to create the feature film and to describe the Nabua which he sees in the present. Themes of memory, and perspective immediately present themselves, but most powerfully, the absence of people in the village resonates. Nabua was the site of vicious military crackdowns and occupation from the 60’s through the 80’s, and residents who were not killed, fled. Thus the elements of the film, from the sound design and the weightless, floating camera, to the presence of soldiers, combine to interact with the spectral presence of Uncle Boonmee, whose personal history is one with the history of the area, in exploring a concepts of filmic archaeology in the face of cultural repression.

A Letter to Uncle Boonmee is a confident and powerful piece of artistic filmmaking but it embodies both the best and worst qualities of that designation. The film without context is meaningless. Without knowing Nabua’s history, or Weerasethakul’s consistent antagonism to his country’s military leadership, or even a little of the backstory of Uncle Boonmee, the nature of his past lives and from whom his story is gleaned from, (a local monk), then there is nothing to hold onto. There is a hypnotic power to the camera movements and to the natural surroundings, but the film is not experiential treat, as flat visuals and poor lighting succeed in creating a feeling of in-the-room presence, but are not joyous to behold. The soundtrack of whistling winds paying homage to the spirits, is the most enjoyable technical detail of the film.

Fortunately of course there are plenty of materials available in which to deliver this context. Animate Projects, the English organization referred to in the film which gave Weerasethakul the money to embark on the project, have done a good job supplying a synopsis, artist’s statement and posting an interview with him. Phantoms of Nabua a short film which, like A Letter to Uncle Boonmee is part of a multiplatform project called “Primitive” is also available from the site for free (and is more enjoyable imho). Furthermore, intelligent reviews like this one at Not Just Movies, provide food for thought.

Even with such background in hand, I think 16 minutes of this approach will be tedious for most audiences, yours truly included. If the best part of movies for you is in thinking and talking about them afterwards, this film will provide material for that, and the relatively brief effort will be worth it. Plus cineastes are snobs (admit it), so this might be a good way to speak intelligently about Weerasethakul to your friends and impress them with your depth and insight into the Cannes-winning film that basically no one has seen yet. However if you would like your films to give you at least some visceral enjoyment during the act of watching, A Letter to Uncle Boonmee might well be interminable. You are forewarned.

Watch A Letter to Uncle Boonmee at:  Mubi

Animator Stephen Irwin, known for creating one of our favorite films of 2009, The Black Dog’s Progress, has just posted a newer piece titled Atomic Hubbub courtesy of Future Shorts.

Stephen takes an atomic-era instructional voiceover on how to survive a nuclear attack and acts out absurd scenes through his signature black and white style. It’s not a new idea, but often times old ideas have never been done right—and Atomic Hubbub has done it best… so far.

Continuing what has become a beloved tradition, today kicked off the National Film Board of Canada’s Online Short Film Contest. We let you know about it last year too, but if you’re unfamiliar here’s the deal: the NFB picks 10 short films, tosses them up on YouTube for a limited time and then declares a winner based upon how many “likes” the videos received.

The 10 films this year have been culled by short film programmer extraordinaire Danny Lennon from participants at the Cannes Short Film Corner. This out-of-competition event is probably the largest short film market in the world, where a bunch of industry types and creators rub shoulders. Needless to say, the quality of the films tends to be very high, and if history is any guide, a few of these films won’t show up online again. Therefore don’t procrastinate! Watch! Voting is open from May 4th – May 17th

Check it out at:  NFB

I don’t think an explication of the underlying mythology helps much, and a primer from Schlaeffer website does only a little. Instead what we get is eye candy  in a hyper-cool and stylized 7 minute piece that seems ripped from the subconscious of a hopped up hippy.

Character designs reminiscent of Peter Chung, (a source Schlaeffer was unfamiliar with) combine with the floating camera, odd perspectival motion and fluid speed of experimental anime (Studio 4°c, being an inspiration he readily admits).

Many thanks to SotW fan Matt for directing us this short. Check it out at Vimeo via the Play link, or download a 1080p version from the website.

I have to imagine you all are getting a bit tired of these overly short films I keep highlighting. Let’s see…1, 2, 3…by my count this is the 7th(!) of my last 10 recommendations to top the 10 minute mark; a formerly impermeable barrier. Yikes. Worse yet, this film does sometimes even feel like its 18 min runtime. However if you persevere through, this short documentary film achieves what fewer and fewer documentaries do now days—it instills in you a funny and warm empathy for its characters.

Dinosaur Curtains, is a sweet little human interest documentary directed by the Ross Bros., Bill and Turner, an exciting filmmaking team who are creating a signature style for themselves via their humanistic and entertaining explorations of what most would (wrongly) dismiss as mundane American life. 45365, a documentary feature which won the Grand Jury Prize at SXSW in 2009, is the most famous of their works;  just now it is winding down a modest theatrical run, helped along by the heaping of praise that such luminaries as Roger Ebert have thrown its way. However, unlike 45365 this short film, similar in many ways, is available gratis on Vimeo. The short follows a small town couple, young child in tow, as they organize a night of TV viewing. The wife it is revealed, has her brief moment in the limelight premiering, an appearance on Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

Like the infinitely slicker, Slumdog Millionaire, the big TV game show is the dramatic crescendo of the piece, but for Dinosaur Curtains, it is hardly the source of appeal. For us the audience, the outcome is in question, but for the family and friends present, the outcome is of course already known. Instead we are left with goofy and adorable antics of the kid and that big kid, the Dad, as the night progresses. Along the way, the sad financial state of the young family is a cause for concern and comedy, while several telling moments reveal a certain truth about life outside the big city.

Dinosaur Curtains while compassionate, is without agenda, and as such highlights the heartland in a way that simultaneously supports both the arguments of those who praise and belittle small town America. Therefore despite its 18 min runtime and occasional meandering slowness, I find the film fascinating. That said, 18 min! This will be the last long one for a while I swear.

Thanks Hammer to Nail

I show Canada to itself, the sum of ordinary things, ordinary things made miraculous!

Canada’s own Guy Maddin is delightfully weird. He is one of few successful feature filmmakers to continue to work in the short film medium, and is one of the few filmmakers period who can make narrative shorts that feel decidedly experimental.

That’s Maddin’s signature aesthetic though, which we enjoyed a while back with The Heart of the World. Night Mayor combines similar techniques—the soft B&W, the love of projections, dissolves, and of course lightning fast cuts, to tell a similar story of personal stories effecting the world. Oh and big weird machines. Night Mayor is a story in service to Canada. Commissioned by the NFB to celebrate its 70th Anniversary, the short film relates the story of Bosnian immigrant Nihad Ademi and his lovely children, who learn to harness the power and music of the Aurora Borealis to project images across the country.

They call it “organic television” at one point, and soon people all over the country are getting weird projections through their television lines from Amedi. However the elements that he projects interact with the Aurora Borealis to morph and merge, creating strange new (and occasionally titillating) results.

Ultimately I’m sure there is a lot about this film that is escaping me, especially due to the disjointed nature of my viewing experience thanks to the NFB’s slow load times this morning. Therefore my textual insights are small and resultantly the story was a slight bore. However the visuals and creative energy present in the film simply do not allow your attention to flag. Overall another uniquely bizarre triumph for Canada’s great auteur.

Sondhi@shortoftheweek.com

Parallel Lines is their newest short film marketing ploy. Engaging Ridley Scott Associates—the famed director’s commercial production company—they commissioned 5 of their in-house directors make shorts of their own devising. The catch? Base each film off of the same lines of dialogue. From there the directors went off in startlingly different directions.

Click the image to watch the best short, The Gift.

This project doesn’t repeat the success of the aforementioned films—3 of the films are fairly dreadful in my book, but with each clocking in under 5 minutes the opportunity cost is low. If you want to see one only, make it The Gift, pictured above, which is a really purdy sci-fi tale by Ridley Scott protegé Carl Erik Rinsch. Rinsch has been tabbed to direct the upcoming studio feature 47 Ronin (please don’t 300 it ~_~), and in the 18 hours since I first posted this, The Gift has been getting a lot of Panic Attack-style buzz.  Johnny Hardstaff’s Dark Room is also entertaining though distractingly ludicrous in almost every aspect.

Check out Parallel Lines at:  Philips Cinema YouTube Channel

More animation-porn for all of you today. Well…now that I pause and think about it that’s a terrible description since there IS actual animated porn out there. What I meant is with Meet Meline we have another film that has little reason to be other than to look pretty. But goodness does it satisfy that one requirement!

I’m am really getting astonished at the level of independent 3D animation that is getting put out right now, and Meet Meline is simply the latest. A labor of love, this film was created by Sebastian Laban and his wife, Virginie Goyons-Laban, and has been in the works for at least 3 years, judging by their production blog. That’s longer than Virginie has had that “Laban” affixed to the end of her name, so the working relationship must have been at least somewhat satisfactory! The description of the plot from the website:

“Meline is a little girl who spends most of her time in her grand-parents barn, drawing. One day, a scared furry little creature gets lost in the barn. All excited about this mysterious creature, Meline will now try as hard as she can to approach it and discover it.”

The standout feature of the short film is the extraordinarily detailed environment that Meline interacts in, which is lovingly created and stocked with a multitude of little items and details. The lighting effects in particular majestically enhance the surroundings. As my intro intimated though, the film does have problems. The process of Meline “discovering” this creature, is really an excuse to follow her around the barn for nearly 5 minutes. Its perplexing that such astonishing effort was summoned for such minimal inspiration. This leads directly into the second complaint, which is that the direction of the film is far too intrusive. In the course of following the critter’s chaotic flight and Meline’s efforts to track it, we are treated to every kind of virtual camera movement there is: large multi-planar swoops, spins, overhead perspectives, you name it. Spatial coherence for the audience is destroyed.

But most baffling to me is the atmosphere of the piece, which very naturally started on whimsy, only to perceptibly shift to suspense. Meline has her flashlight go out near the end almost as if she was in a horror film. The animal is concealed from view the entire movie, so perhaps we are meant to briefly think the worst, yet the glimpses we do see look so entirely like a common squirrel that its a wonder anyone could think that.

As you can see, I took issues with the aspects of the film, but the decision to post it nonetheless is a testament to the wonderful artistry displayed throughout the short. If it did not suffer from the aforementioned flaws, I surely would do a featured review for it. But despite these quibbles, at a economical 6 minutes I do not have reservations recommending it as a Short of the Moment for those of you who, like me, enjoy visual treats now and then.

Busy week for shorts and Absolut is partly to blame. Well known as a patron of the arts, Absolut has turned its grace toward short-film, unveiling Spike Jonze’s I’m Here and this 15 min Jay-Z documentary in the last several days.

NY-Z documents Jay-Z’s huge 9/11 concert this past year which took place at Madison Square Garden. The film goes behind the scenes of the rehearsals, all the way through to the after-party, and inbetween splices in interviews with Jay-Z himself, as he reflects on the role the city has had in shaping him.

The narrative is not the best, but, whether you like his music or not, listening to Hip Hop’s great mogul is always fascinating. The true surprise is veteran music photographer Danny Clinch and his cohorts from Milkt who made the piece. Visually, Mr. Clinch CRUSHES IT. Wow. As a photographer/videographer I’m going to be watching this film plenty of times. If anyone has a link to behind the scenes production details, send ‘em on over please!

Osbert Parker has been one of the UK’s prize jewels. His two famous short films, Film Noir and Yours Truly have won awards across the world due to his innovative collage and stop-motion techniques reminscent of Widrich’s 2003 hit Fast Film (a film deserving to be featured itself). This mixture of styles brings him attention, but it is his dark, hardboiled plots, which borrow liberally both the atmosphere and the characters of famous film noir’s past, which has made the films beloved.

Yet until now Parker’s films have not been online, nor available on DVD. Vimeo is housing a copy of Your Truly currently though, albeit with Spanish subtitles. Watch it immediately, who knows how long it will be around!

Now contributor Merrick has conceived of a new column to be called “Cinematic Shrimp” that ideally will showcase a short film of note once a week. Hmmm sound familiar? Just kidding, we here at SotW have no claim to the idea. There have been a few short film recommendation-sites over time, and even big sites like Twitch and /Film, have on occasion taken to showcasing short film. So we’re happy to have Aint it Cool, embark on this project, and will be looking forward to their success. Merrick and his crew also hope to get in depth with each film, interviewing creators, and discussing the technical aspects of how they brought their pieces to fruition, for the benefit of the filmmaker crowd. Cool!

Things get kicked off with Cinematic Shrimp #1, which highlights The Search, a film by Mark Buchanan dealing with researchers from SETI, the organization that looks for extra-terrestrial life. Check it out.

See Cinematic Shrimp #1 at — Aint it Cool News

If you hadn’t heard, Spike Jonze has continued his sustained assault on the short film medium, this time with his long-anticipated “secret robot short film”,  I’m Here. This of course is coming on the heels of the Where the Wild Things Are DVD-extra, Higglety Pigglety Pop! and the Kanye West collab, We Were Once a Fairy Tale—a corpus which altogether represents the most attention short film has received from an established feature film director in a generation. And, in his idiosyncratic way, Jonze has once again succeeded in creating something familiar yet weird—beautiful undeniably, yet which will surely be polarizing to audiences.

The film, written by Jonze as well, follows Sheldon, a sad-sack robot existing in a world where such a state doesn’t seem to be a big deal. He works at local library, he rides the bus, he spends his nights in a bare little studio apartment, all the while looking shy and mopey. That changes when he catches the eye of a female robot—a love interest of the indie/reckless/freespirited taxonomy, who enables Sheldon to connect with the world and enjoy himself for perhaps the first time.

Though the short film has been out a few days, I just finally watched it. Like I commented recently with D-I-M, Deus in Machina, it’s hard to get up for 30min short films even if you’re confident of the quality. Despite arriving with fanfare and oozing confident filmmaking, I’m Here had to wait in my own personal line (even while thousands of others had to wait in a virtual line—more on that later). However, now in its afterglow, I confess that the film is nothing if not engrossing, even as I harbor reservations regarding it.

As piece of filmmaking it is an unqualified triumph. From the opening shot the film hits its melancholy groove and captivates. Jonze is a master stylist, and crafts scenes of exquisitely mild depression so well. Via some mysterious personal alchemy of pacing, framing and sound design, Jonze has the remarkable ability to make one feel “present” during a film in a way few filmmakers can, even in the absence of gripping action or dialogue. Despite being a robot film, it forgoes the action, futurism, and even the tech-fetishism normally associated with its ilk, instead focusing its energies into being a mundane relationship drama.

Unfortunately mundane is the correct word. The robot aspect is not pure gimmick as the plot’s ultimate direction is inextricably tied to this mechanical element, and yet for much of the film if you take away the ironic bemusement regarding the substitution of people for robots, you’re left with a very run of the mill romance. Perhaps this is necessary to ultimately sell the third act of the film, but Jonze’s attempt to recreate Lost in Translation via stock romantic set pieces is stilted even while it is frequently gorgeous: like the lens-flared glow from the woods at sunset, or the dreamy montages from the party while Girls “Hellhole Ratrace” surges in the background.

<Spoiler Alert>

While cliché, the courtship is cute. It is the third act I do not like, even as I must respect it. My dislike is selfish not objective, I was sad and surprised to see matters take a turn for the worse, even though in retrospect ample warning was given. Like We Were Once a Fairytale, I’m Here finds Jonze employing sleight of hand, leading the audience in one direction, only to turn that conception on its head. Here romance is corrupted, as self-destructive behavior is very literally realized with Francesca. Francesca keeps having various body parts get wrecked, and Sheldon, hopelessly in love as he is, is all too eager to volunteer his own as replacement, culminating in the donation of his entire body.

This is a powerful development, and remarkably open to a range of reactions and feelings, which is why Jonze and this film do ultimately demand attention. Some may see Sheldon’s actions as the ultimate expression of love. Others, may view it as the reckless enabling of Francesca’s self-destruction. Not to think too deeply into it, but I feel that in the more individualistic West, it is very likely that viewers will frown upon Sheldon’s self-abnegation, tending to see Sheldon’s sacrifice as foolish and exploitive, whereas Eastern cultures are much more sympathetic to the sacrificial hero, largely one surmises due to Buddhism’s influence, and the concept of negating the self. This bit of amateur sociology brought to you by a lifetime’s love of Asian film =P.

Throughout it all I tended not to focus on the damage Sheldon may be doing to his love long-term and instead look at the effect on Sheldon himself. Throughout the act of watching, I’m silently screaming “NO!”, during each stage of this slo-mo car wreck, and yet in the end found myself quite moved. The argument is that one should not sacrifice oneself to another, that there are always other fish in the sea and that short term emotion masks what will become long term regret. And yet Sheldon’s life without Francesca was so barren. Key moments of the film, such as the music at the car, or the question of what the ocean is like,  expose how immune to the simple act of feeling Sheldon had been, period. There is reason to believe that life without Francesca is not a life worth having at all, and and even in bitter-sweet sacrifice, the powerful emotion of such an exchange is a reason unto itself to make the decisions he did.

<Spoiler End>

The film debuted stateside at Sundance recently, and thanks to Absolut, we are getting a remarkbly quick turn around on the internet. However many have complained about Absolut’s process of display—a website that poses as a virtual theater, including a Facebook linkup in order to watch the film with friends, and a limited number of “seats” which lead many internet viewers to turn away, or race to YouTube. I for one had no issue, as waiting a couple of days like I did I was able to see the film first try. Besides, though an occasional pirate, I’m not so self-centered that I’ll begrudge an entity and artist the opportunity to provide me free entertainment in the manner of their choosing. On top of that, I actually thought it was pretty cool. The virtual theater really did replicate the “event” like nature of watching the film, especially the initial zoom to full screen upon start. For once I did not multitask during a short film.

Jonze has provided us internet denizens a superior short film once again, one of exceptional execution and vision, and Absolut and the ad teams behind them have crafted a unique screening experience that is fun and though occasionally clunky, does respect to the film itself. I encourage you all to check it out.

(thanks Josh)