Kseniya was in a tough spot just 2 years ago. She was a 23 year old Ukraine artist who had to let her business go during the worst of the financial meltdown. It was time for her to take a risk—and that risk was an unusual one—sand animation. Now sand isn’t an entirely new medium for animation. Caroline Leaf pioneered the technique back in 1968 with Sand or Peter and the Wolf by manipulating scenes of sand backlit on a light box and shooting each step frame by frame in what must have been agonizing work—and certainly not a captivating performance.

But Kseniya has changed all that. Over the course of a few years, she developed a new technique of illustrating her scenes in realtime before a live audience—swiping sand this way and dragging her fingers that way to craft scenes that slowly emerge from one another. The beauty of the technique is in it’s simplicity. It follows what most historians will tell you is one of the oldest forms of visual storytelling. Many early cultures used sticks, stones, and even their hands—carving scenes and characters into the sand around them—bringing life to their spoken stories. And yet, the sheer popularity of this film (it’s hit 14 million views on YouTube!) could only come about in an age where modern technology makes it possible to broadcast that story to millions of people around the world.

The story in Kseniya’s untitled 8-minute masterpiece tells of the German conquest of Ukraine in the second world war. Kseniya builds peaceful scenes of parks and baby cribs only to bombard them with a flurry of sand in which she crafts faces of agony and despair. The message is clear even if the details aren’t, and the weight of war on the women and children who survive is felt by the audience.

Though Kseniya has proved she has talent (she took home first place on the show along with $125,000), it’s unclear as to where she will go next. As with other talent show winners, much of their performance is built on the uniqueness of the contestant’s talent and their ability to dodge our expectations (Susan Boyle on Britain’s Got Talent). That sort of surprise makes for a great first viewing but is often difficult to sustain. Kseniya has a few other performances from the show on YouTube, however none seem to match the impact of the first. But who can say how her career will evolve. Perhaps in the face of another challenge, she will find a way to reinvent herself once again.

And so begins The Terrible Thing of Alpha-9, the second of back to back weeks of Flash-animated goodness! Of course for varieties sake we’ve got two divergent aesthetics on display. Andrew’s review of Tarboy introduced us to the titular character via a very modern short, filled with fast cuts and stark graphical elements. This week’s film from director Jake Armstrong, places its feet squarely in two nostalgic camps—pulp sci-fi and classic Looney Toons.

The whistling theremin of the title screen coupled with the retro-futurist laser and spacesuit of the bounty hunter, clearly establish the film’s affinity for 60’s sci-fi. However there exists some modern grit as well. Armstrong’s facile drawings of the spaceman, in particular his leering, greedy smile when he first sets eyes upon the beast, distance the character from the jocular pulp heroes and idealist scientists of sci-fi past. Perhaps the this is the influence of the director’s noted love of comics, where such sleazy characters have long enjoyed a playground for their amoral pursuits. Armstrong however also points to TV shows such as The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone as being strong references for him throughout the project, and those programs, The Twilight Zone in particular, are famous for examining imperfect protagonists. Certainly the surprising revelation in the middle of short is clearly reminiscent of those program’s notoriety for pulling the rug out from under audiences.

In an odd pairing though, it is the influence of classic Looney Tunes that shapes the most memorable moments of the short film both in mood and animation. The eventual appearance of the Terrible Thing, due to my limited knowledge of classic cartooning, certainly did bring Gossamer to mind, though according to Armstrong the film in sections is a reimagining of the 1961 short The Abominable Snow Rabbit. A more detailed description of why however may prove spoiler-ish, therefore let’s move to the animation itself. The quality movement displayed certainly is a strenght of the film and does credit to those bygone masterpieces, bringing a surprising amount of detail and depth to a Flash work. Shadow details look gritty and hand drawn, which I think distinguishes the work from the clean flat outlines we normally associate with Flash.

Such profiency is surprising from what was a student work. This short premiered online at Cartoon Brew in June of last year shortly upon its completion. If I’d seen it would have made a fine addition to the Student Film Series we ran not long afterwards. Armstrong followed up the strong response to the film by landing a job at Cartoon Network working on the forthcoming Regular Show. CN is a perfect home I would think considering his tastes as demonstrated by The Terrible Thing of Alpha-9. I look forward to him working his way up and providing us more gems such as this one.

In the film, anthropomorphic cats reside in a swinging town reminiscent of Casablanca. Music is the community’s pride and the solace of our world-weary hero; a loner cat of a literary inclination, who doubles as our narrator. One by one though the musicians and singers of the town disappear. Utopia transforms to dystopia, and our hero uncovers the root of the disappearances: a malevolent force is bent on creating the most horrific of all instruments—the Cat Piano (a real thing!).

Analogies are always helpful in relating the qualities of a film. Already I have referenced Casablanca, so I  will attempt to continue in this mode. In tone, imagine if you would the slightly gothic fantasies of Neil Gaiman.  The vocal stylings of Nick Cave as the main character proves an inspired casting choice in this vein. Rather than Mr. Gaiman’s proclivity towards the Romantic poets though, writer/director Eddie White finds inspiration in Kerouac and Beat poets. Arrhythmic rhyming and chewy alliteration color our hero’s retelling of the town’s travails, annoying some commentators on the internet so far, but adding a necessary element to what would otherwise be ponderous recap.

Visually I do not think I am qualified to deconstruct the influences on display, and this is what I meant the most about a confident aesthetic. An anime styling is certainly seen in the character designs: our heroes gangly body and heroine’s humongous eyes,  the villain’s otherworldy visage and the deliciously imposing mechanical construction of the Piano.  The work of someone like Tartakovsky though is easily perceived as well, the dramatic, graphic contrast between light and dark that described so much of his best work on Samurai Jack.

But some elements are wholly unique. The vignetting of almost every shot, a fierce glowing brightness emanating from the characters themselves receding to black on the edges; rarely if ever using all the real estate available in the chosen 2.35:1 screen ratio, is a stylistic choice that pays dividends, serving to selectively focus audience attention, and accentuate the hypnotically sinister air permeating the short film.

The People’s Republic of Animation is the studio which produced this piece. Based out of Australia, they have been on my radar since they produced Safer in a Wild World, a spot for the Mitsubishi Lancer. While cute, it did not lead me to suspect that this kind of storytelling was something they were capable of. It seems though that their aggressively multi-platform philosophy of working through shorts, commericals, tv and video games, has paid off. Sometimes we celebrate works for their roughness, a hint of the process and the work involved, evidence therein of a blossoming talent unfolding like a newborn fawn which exhibits beauty and grace on those wobbly legs. The Cat Piano is in contrast a mature work, the kind of refined piece that can only be earned through trial and mastery. This is a superlative short by any reckoning.

It’s a genius piece from the much lorded music promo and commercial director Chris Milk, that manages to play the sureality of the action completely straight so that not for a second did I fall out of the film to think, “Hey wait a minute???”. The scripted lines of rejection clichés could have been plucked complete from 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, yet are delivered by Aasha Davis with a sincerity that banishes the irony those phrases should conjure. The deadpan, measured reactions and matter-of-fact delivery of Jorma Taccone are the perfect conterpoint to the bizzare direction the film moves to and helps to anchor it in an askew reality I was more than happy to go with.

The heart of our rejected lover was brought to bloody, crooning life by Keith Sintay whose efforts were rewarded with a D&AD Yellow Pencil Award for Music Video Animation (2009). Milk was also awarded 2008 Music Video Director of the Year by the Music Video Production Association.

It’s been pointed out in the comments over at Antville that Milk’s film bears a resemblance to Adam Lieber’s video for the Charlie Alex March cover of In The End (2007) and Suthon Petchsuwan’s Follow Your Heart CareerBuilder ad spot (2008). Even if Milk was inspired by these pieces (he wasn’t: “This Gnarls video I’ve pitched to 3 or 4 bands over the years.” via Globecat) it’d still be safe to say that he put the concept to its most effective use.

A director and illustrator by trade, CISMA spent four years as a senior motion designer at Brazilian studio Lobo, which has through the years become unquestionably known as an unofficial finishing school for some of the finest creatives we have in the wild today, such as Guilherme Marcondes and Marcelo Garcia.

Made for around $6,000 and shot on the Arri SrIII super 16 using Zeiss 1.3 prime lenses, Handmade may be CISMA’s first move into the live action space, but exhibits his mastery of colour to dictate tone throughout, alongside animation effects which take us into the mind of our lovelorn lead. I also totally love the dual concepts of the hugging sweaters which literally wrap our protagonists in a loving embrace, balanced against a drink of sadness and rejection brewed from choice words taken from a Dear John letter.

As a side note, if you fell in love with the paper clip looking font Relava that makes up Handmade’s title, CISMA has made it available to buy via his site http://www.cisma.com.br for your writing pleasure.

Glory at Sea is a wonderful combo of small human moments and big fantasy ideas. Obvious connections are there to the very real New Orleans disaster, but the story has been refolded into one of hope rather than suffering. If you sense a bit of Ray Tintori’s style, you’re spot on—Ray had his hands in both the story as well as camera and production design work. It’s a Court 13 production, with many of the same folks behind Ray’s Death to the Tinman and 2008 fave, Jettison Your Loved Ones. But props need to go to director Benh Zeitlin for crafting such a strong story and involving an entire community of real survivors. Though similar in tone, Glory at Sea goes well beyond Tintori’s work in both scale and production value.

Benh explains the original idea came from a script he planned to shoot in Greece about a resurrection from an underwater afterlife. The idea seemed to have a relevancy to post-Katrina New Orleans, so Benh teamed up with Par Parekh and Ray Tintori and rewrote the script to fit the personalities of the local people who lived it. Suddenly, the film went from 7 minutes to 25. The ship, it turns out, was built just as ad hoc as it looks in the film with random pieces found on the side of the road added because of their emotional significance rather than their buoyancy.

In Marc Craste’s strikingly original animation Jojo in the Stars, the nightmarish, freak show world he has created reminds me of what might happen if Lynch and Burton ever decided to make a film together (in fact Craste evens proclaims Eraserhead as one of the inspirations behind his film—along with Wings of Desire).  It’s rare to see an animation in such a desaturated form, but the colourless aesthetics of the film adds magnitudes to the industrialized carnival location of the film, whilst also giving it’s characters a dark, tragic edge. If Jojo would have been in colour, it’s hard to imagine how the characters wouldn’t have been cute and lovable (ok maybe not Madame Pica) and this would have inevitably distracted the focus from the story at the heart of this piece.

Although the visuals of Jojo will almost inevitably be what the majority of its viewers remember and remark upon, it is the narrative of the film which takes it to the next level. A heart-breaking tale of love, isolation and self-sacrifice, Jojo tells the age old story of how far one robot-bunny-thing will go to try and set free the silver-plated, owl-like, trapeze artist he has loved from afar. Although set in a twisted, strange world, very unlike the one we live in, the story of Jojo feels like it could come from any book or any film set in any time or any place.

Craste stated that he wanted to create a “a love story with freaks” and that’s exactly what he’s done in creating a cold, nightmarish world, filled at it’s heart with a universally touching story of warmth and devotion.

Comprised of two parts, To Build a Home firstly chronicles the last hours of a dying woman (Julia Ford), as her dedicated and faithful partner (Peter Mullan) cares and comforts for his love in her final moments. In the second part of the short, we see Mullan’s broken shell of a man, coming to terms with the loss of his beloved and struggling to face his future without the woman he loves. It’s an emotional journey full of feeling and atmosphere with a story that will resonate with anyone who has experienced the passing of a loved one.

Up the Resolution’s sombre video for two of The Cinematic Orchestra tracks is a swift departure from their usual, graphics/effects laden work (their video for Coldcut’s Sound Mirrors being a pristine example of this). For To Build a Home, UTR instead decided to focus their attention more on storytelling, mood and performance. The story they weave is touching and mesmerizing, whilst the performance from their two lead actors is nothing short of heart-breaking. Peter Mullan is in spellbinding form portraying a man struggling to come to terms with loss, but I wouldn’t expect anything less from one of Britain’s most under-rated actors. Although this appears to be a story- and performance-driven piece, don’t for any minute be fooled into thinking that the visuals for this film have been over-looked. The cinematography is absolutely sumptuous. Shot on 35mm, it perfectly captures not only the stunning landscapes of Cumbria, but every nook and cranny of the couples homely little stone cottage (as well as every nook and cranny of the actors expressions). The aesthetics of the film are even more amazing, when considering this is director Andrew Griffin’s (an animation specialist) first venture into the medium of 35mm film.

As a music video it’s a pretty original idea, combining two songs from an Artist into the soundtrack of a short film, especially as the two tracks complement the narrative perfectly. As a short film, it’s beautiful in all departments, utterly compelling and will stay with you for a long time after watching it.

Carson Mell is not an action director, he specializes in a unique form of non-animation animation, and so it is the latter route which Field Notes from Dimension X: Oasis explores to satisfying effect; focusing on a weary inter-dimensional traveler as he struggles with isolation on a remote world he dubs “Oasis”.

Mell has been on a great run of late, teaming up with Wholphin to release his prior films, The Writer and Bobby Bird: The Devil in Denim, as part of that most excellent collection, and it is this association which lead to his film Chonto, finding a home in the Youtube Screening Room. Viewers who have seen any of these previous films will recognize Mell’s signature style in tact: colorful writing that carries the story, supplemented by inventive, cleanly illustrated images, barely moving against picturesque photo-backgrounds.

This lack of animation doesn’t work for everyone, but the simplicity allows Mell to work on his own, providing the freedom to follow his whims and to focus on his two great strengths as a writer and an illustrator. The illustrations are very cool, especially when he conjures up monsters, sexbots and other items from the imaginarium. The graphic style is well executed, though nothing remarkable to any Fantagraphic fan. His writing on the other hand is extremely interesting, and is surely what has made him a hit with the McSweeney’s set. One gets the feeling that Mell is really a writer who looks to film as a promotional tool. The intertextual synergy of Chonto with Mell’s debut novel Saguaro, a book which fleshes out the legend of Bobby Bird, seems to attest to that.

All in all Mell’s style does not work for everyone, and I myself have reservations regarding it. However Field Notes from Dimension X is his best work to date, and clocking in at under 5 minutes the opportunity cost is low. Therefore I recommend you check it out and decide for yourself if all the fuss is warranted.

Score: 6/10

A Sundance 10/10 film: currently offline

The film moves effortlessly between passages of time, tracing the break-down of the relationship precipitated by and relived through an obsessive requirement to record events the two have shared. The greater Rob’s fear of losing her the more desperate is he to preserve Alice’s image.

The narrative is presented in flip book animation and live action. Narrated by Rob (Simon Perry) we watch as Alice attempts to wrestle him back to reality. “Can you just STOP for one minute to talk about this?” she writes. I can scarcely conceive of a form of flip book ignored in this classy film: conventional, hand machine operated, toilet tissue unravelled, images discarded on the floor, cascading in the air, even, at one stage, pasted to the London Underground wall behind Alice as she sits alone with the possessions removed from their apartment.

If the use of animation is extraordinary, the filming is subtle with a curiously detached quality about it. Many of the shots of Alice are full on portraits, reflecting her partner’s obsessive need to record their relationship. The walls of the apartment itself are white and at times it is as if the director has drained much of the colour from the action so that it echoes the flickering white paper of the flip books. Technically and artistically accomplished, Adjustment is beautifully edited, cutting from past to present almost as if the photographs and drawn images are shuffled into a different order, as indeed they are in the film.

The movie formed part of Ian’s graduation from the Royal College of Art in 2006. He also studied and taught Computer Animation at Bournemouth University. He is one of the UK’s young directors with huge potential.

Wrong footing the audience is a difficult task for a filmmaker to pull off without leaving them ultimately feeling like the victim in a bait and switch scam, but in Unlocked the mis-stepping is completely a self-imposed affair. Perhaps it’s as a result of our implicit understanding of film language through narratives such as The Vanishing and Silence of the Lambs, reinforced by the caution inherited from parents and trusted adults that when a stranger with a van meets an attractive young women the natural result is capture closely followed by some kind of ordeal.

However, that’s not the path Wein takes us down despite signs to the contrary and a cut to black that gives you time to image a potentially gruesome fate for our heroine. His intentions are perhaps the opposite, although it’s not until the final shot of the film that you’re released to dissipate the built tension of ever present danger, and see that what we actually have is a chance encounter that acts as a severely needed catalyst for complete emotional release.

There’s no shame in letting it all go whilst you watch Unlocked.

Another film this week which stretches the definition of SoTW. We prefer short films—preferably ones with narratives— but have been known in the past to showcase music videos and art films. Today though my otakudom is peeking through again and we’ve brought you a commercial from Japan.

Of course as you may have guessed, this is no ordinary commercial. Produced for a competition by the Kao company for its Asience line of shampoo, the beautiful, though unfortunately titled, Asience: Hairy Tale, sprung forth from the hallowed halls of Production I.G., the most reputable anime production company in the world, and features stunning work from some of the biggest names in the industry.

Directed by Kazuto Nakazawa, famous states-side for directing the animated segment of Kill Bill Part 1, Asience: Hairy Tale, is steeped in tradition. Blending traditional Japanese tapestry styles with traditional cel-animation techniques, Nakazawa creates a haunting and otherworldly setting for a 60 second story of love and tragedy.

Fitting the traditional tapestry style, the story follows a Heian-era princess and her samurai suitor. Captivated by the woman’s beauty, the samurai climbs her hair Rapunzel-style to tryst with the princess. Her angry father discovers the truth though and the next time the samurai attempts to scale the castle, she cuts her hair, sending the samurai down, and ultimately herself, in a hail of bloody maple leaves. Her epithet, written in blood, translates as “Hair is the heart of a woman,” an old Japanese adage. Quite a lot of development for 60 seconds!

This level of development is possible due to the remarkable nature of the compositions. Lushly executed as they are, more important is that there is a conciseness of concept to the images, each pregnant with meaning. The image of the princess reflected in the samurai’s eye for example. An extreme closeup of the eye is a standard shot in anime semiotics, but the reflection instantly establishes the connection and attraction between the two. Likewise the iconic image of cherry blossoms under the moonlight instantly conveys romance. Further shots, like the scowling, oni-like mask of the Father, say so much with so little. The importance of these relatively static images means that Asience could easily have been a comic, and yet the animation techniques deserve notice as well. The Production IG website provides a nice set of behind-the scenes interviews and production stills which detail the techniques involved. Most remarkable is the absence of computer assistance for the in-betweens. Animation that is meant to emulate painterly techniques is not new, but usually relies on CG to fill the complex brush-lines between keyframes, such as during shots of the samurai and the angry father. The Asience production team instead embarked on a painstaking process of tracing the original lines of the keyframes in order to each a similar effect in the inbetweens.

As art, I’m quite taken by Asience: Hairy Tale, but far as the short’s effectiveness as a commercial—that could be questioned. A bloody and tragic historical tale, is not usually most people’s idea of how to best market shampoo after all. Still, product awareness is a key element to advertising as well, and this commercial sure turned heads. It won awards at the London ad fest, and played just recently at Annecy, one of the worlds premiere animation festivals. Enjoy!!

It commences with a giant stork-like, metal bird, beautifully crafted—there can be no other word for all the prop and puppet design here—sweeping down over a wooden carcass of a ship, the struts and frame boat and the skeletal system of a giant animal. The ship is floating on strips of wood, like complex pedals of a vast cathedral organ, the gently undulating lathes forming the sea. We become aware of a bespectacled figure immersed in the innards, studiously working on the cogs and wheels of his wooden clock. When the bell rings it is with the resonance of the giant metal bowls in the heights of Notre Dame. There is no Quasimodo figure however, just an old man hard at work, the passage of time and the disease revealed in his transparent, emaciating figure. The soundtrack is the bells and ticking of the clock.

Visually, this stop-motion movie is stunning even in the reduced quality available. Building the set and puppets took one year alone. The studio set is remarkable—artfully lit, providing ample scope for the camera to pan around. We see the clock-maker from different angles—his face sculptured from wood cast in the warm glow from his lantern; or we look down from above and marvel at the symmetry of the boat beneath.

Veteran actor Barry Otto narrates the story of Dik’s relationship with his father with such sincerity I believed, until I read the credits, that it was the director himself speaking. It is a complex work involving guilt over the death of his younger brother, John, who died at the age of five, 14 years before Dik was born. The consequent sadness in the family was one from which Dik felt excluded. Unlike the sudden death of a road accident the slowness of cancer allowed the son to say goodbye and “hello”. When his father dies his ashes are buried with those of his long dead son. In a moving passage of commentary the difference in quantity of the ashes between the two, boy and man, achieves both reconciliation and a release.

Dik was courteous in replying to questions from one of my students, Adam Fadra, in an extended interview for my school website last year and provides ample detail about the production. For example, the “hero bird” was assembled from brass, aluminium and bits of one of his father’s clocks whilst the process involved Dik constructing a thousand moving parts and making 22,000 images.

I see a lot of animated movies. Dad’s Clock stands out for a number of reasons, its candour being one. I have never seen a set of this complexity, a work of art in itself. The supreme craftsmanship allows Dik to form striking tableaux: the skeleton figure peering into his telescope out to the stars on top of the symmetrical alignment of timber, figure and ship viewed in front of the backdrop of the cosmos. When the old man descends for a final time into the machine and the mechanism closes around him it is an obvious metaphor but an effective one.

Dik’s personal and dignified tribute deserves greater recognition than it has received other than the director’s Australian home. His design and architecture company Studio 505 is situated in Melbourne.

There is Only One Sun, is the fruit of such a union. Wong Kar Wai, the premier arthouse writer/director of Hong Kong, decided in 2007 to team up with Phillips to do an online film promoting the electronic giant’s Aurea Ambilight Televisions. The result manages to admirably traverse that tricky ground between art and commerce, being a worthy addition to the director’s oeuvre while simultaneously an effective commercial. We as audiences are simply treated to an online film of an impressive artistic and technical caliber.

Set in a garishly lighted, yet otherwise ambiguous future; (better to show off Phillips “ambilight” technology), the film focuses on “006”, a beautiful female agent of “Central Authority: Human Sanitation Division”. She is put on the case of a notorious figure known as “Light”, for whom she must pose as a blind person in order to gain his trust. The charismatic Light has a deep affect on the agent, and tension is derived from that classic spy trope—has 006 gone too deep?

Wong Kar Wai works well with the limitations of the medium while staying within the boundaries of his well-traversed tropes. If ever the auteur theory applied to a filmmaker it is Wong, as each of his films simultaneously draws from, and enriches those which came before. There is Only One Sun is no different, as it treads the familiar territories of love, trust, memory and disconnect that we have seen in films such as 2046 and Ashes of Time.

The opening of the film recalls the languorous pace of his most recent outings like 2046, as does the futuristic and stylized art direction, but things pick up soon via narration. Wong Kar Wai is famous as a director of emotion and affect, dispensing with narrative thrust in favor of exquisite moods and moments and this short is no different. The scene on the bed when 006 crushes her tracking device is lovely and powerful, as are her moments with the TV. But a short film reduces Wong’s canvas by which such moments unfold, causing for some clunky expository moments throughout. Still, though reasonably straightforward, the presentation of time is still charmingly dyslexic.

As I watched the short it occurred to me that a spy is the perfect Wong Kar Wai protagonist. Every new relationship is undone from the start by the lie that engendered it, isolating the character in the same rootless way all of Wong’s characters seem to suffer. 006 is the same, but memory for her is more a salvation than for others. Whereas in a film like Ashes of Time, the characters drank magic wine to forget their memories of lost love, and in 2046 memory is the cause of restless, constant dissatisfaction—something to be wished away, in this film the Agency tries to take 006’s memories away but are not successful. Central is a totalitarian place, and the fact that we know her solely as “006″ simply highlights how much of this character’s humanity has been stripped in the process of making her a tool. There is a sad nostalgia for her interactions with Light, and though there is a regret for “something she shouldn’t have seen”, her memory she celebrates as a sign of her life and of past growth, an emblem that is hers which she can take into the future. She DID connect with Light. And thus she can have hope.

This film hit online back in October, but with the director’s English language debut My Blueberry Nights just now hitting American theaters it seemed like a good time to revisit it. Check it out Phillips website, though it sometimes does not play well (Note: no longer on Phillip’s Website). No Worries. I went and visited our good friend DeK.

Viewed as allegory or truth the consequent sense of grief and a longing for the return of the father is so intense that one attaches an individual interpretation or significance to the movie, be it a lost father, child or love. In the creator’s own words it is about “longing” that never diminishes despite the passage of time, defeating all logic.

The landscape of the Netherlands with its wide skies and tall poplar trees is the backdrop to the movie. The sky and landscape is a delicate colour wash of brown, grey, sepia, sometimes hints of green or blue. The drawing is pencil and charcoal, the drawings scanned and colour added digitally. Remarkably in a film that deals in emotion, there is no facial detail whatsoever. Often the figures are drawn in silhouette. This can be remarkably effective in conveying mood: the old woman toiling up the hill, the flapping arms of the child, the teenager gliding down the slope on her bike, which in another later scene will simply not stand upright. Always the brushwork is spare, perhaps a stroke that transforms into a slender girl or a smudge for the squared old woman. Each shot is exquisite: the long shadows of trees or bicycle; seascape and sky, vast and empty. The seasons change with a rustle of leaves or the girl struggling up the hill against a wind that bends trees. The music by Norman Roger is sympathetic to the theme, essentially a lilting tune but arranged with tone and depth.

This astonishingly accomplished and poetic movie fulfils in every sense. Michael Dudok de Wit was born in 1953 and educated in Holland. In 1978, he graduated from the West Surrey College of Art in England. His films include Tom Sweep (1992), The Monk and the Fish (1994) and The Aroma of Tea (2006). You might also have seen the rather classy commercial for United Airlines, A Life. Given his draftsman-like qualities, Michael is much in demand as an illustrator for books. My Christmas present from my family, and well recommended, was Best of British Animation Awards Vol.4 that includes Michael’s Oscar winning short.

That was my experience when I stumbled across the latest installment in the Little Minx Exquisite Corpse series on one of my most trusted video resources No Fat Clips. An exquisite corpse is a technique employed by Surrealists whereby words or images are collectively assembled in a creative relay that picks up where the previous participant left off, forming the corpse in question. The Little Minx Exquisite Corpse rules dictate that each director responds to the last line of text of the previous director’s script only, which has resulted in a nice range of subject matter and style for the collection.

The fifth jump brings us to Phillip Van’s haunting And She Stares Longingly at What She Has Lost, which opens to a carefree child’s Eden full of bunny rabbits and a dog eager to play fetch accompanied by Jeff Alexander’s Come Wander with Me (sung by actress Bonnie Beecher for an episode of The Twilight Zone of the same name) initially evoking a feeling of peace and comfort, that is until the appearance of the Water Man.

There are several ways to interpret the underlying cause of the loss of innocence that takes place in And She Stares… but it’s aching obvious that no matter how much she pines, Big Minx played by Kate Tomlinson can never return to the world of her girl self. Phillip Van’s luscious frames are beautifully augmented by Method Studios’ visual effects and I was particularly taken by how the oft used ugly duckling turns swan motif of the shedding of glasses, is the transformative moment here that spells utter destruction for the life that once was.

It can be a disorienting experience, so view Abigail not in search of a solid narrative, but as a fluid collection of thoughts strung together by the common theme of loss.

Tony, the filmmaker, explains his inspiration for the short:

I decided the best approach was to collect all of the random ideas that pop into your head while you’re brushing your teeth or paying for gas and try and discern a common thread between them. It wasn’t until the thought of the burning airplane popped into my head in a park in London that the film started to structure itself. After that it was a case of holding each tiny idea up against the this plane scenario and seeing which fit the best.

This kind of technique comes from the idea of a zeitgeist or memes (Richard Dawkin’s word for culturally prevalent ideas that are passed on and mutate like genes). It also relates to something Ed Hooks said about the roots of storytelling. He said that the role of the storyteller essentially hasn’t changed since the days of shamanism when stories were told to the tribe to vindicate their beliefs and bolster their reserve in tough times. I think he’s got a point. Even with apparently subversive and anarchic art: If it’s successful it’s a sure sign that it’s reflective of the values of some kind of ‘tribe’ of people who then re-digest it and use it to bolster their reserve in tough times.

For me, (Abigail) was just an experiment to see what kind of memes or cultural ephemera were in my head so that I might find something interesting. It’s like rooting through the trashcan of popular culture to try and find it’s bank details!

Abigail was Tony’s capstone to his years at the Royal College of Art where it waded through the festival rounds (Special Distinction at Annecy) before making a big splash online. For a genre that often translates poorly online (drama), Abigail’s strong imagery and score are powerful enough to draw you in. Impeccably well-crafted, Tony has a surgeon’s eye for iconic imagery. His glowing, technicolor world provides a surreal backdrop for the ensuing madness.

Abigail is a very computer-centric film. It was made entirely on a computer and designed to be viewed on a computer screen …it has a much more interesting life on-line because once it’s part of the web it’s like a magnet with iron fillings. The oddest patterns emerge from those attracted and repelled by it.

For example, it was recently downloaded by a girl in China, stripped of it’s audio and re-scored with her favourite Spanish grunge band. the result was horrific, but I was flattered.

While working on his next film, currently Tony finds most of his inspiration from comic books and graphic novels with plans to explore new possibilities in online graphic stories. Check out his website for updates on his work.

Read our full Q&A with Tony Comley.

One of the keys for the continued viability and importance of the form is in the new generation of filmmakers making use of it. Suzie Templeton is a new and important practitioner of stop-motion animation and has been notably celebrated for it. This week’s short, Dog, won both a British Animation Award, and the BAFTA for short animation in 2002. Dog is a window into the relationship of a father and son shortly after the unexplained death of the boy’s mother. Grief needs to be worked out on both characters ends, yet is not allowed to breathe. The tension and ambiguity of the characters circumstances suffocates their interactions and comes to a head with the death of the family dog, an event which can be seen as compassionate or a betrayal of trust—and possibly symbolic of something even darker.

Works like Dog, and Templeton’s previous work Stanley, are the true antithesis of the larger than life spectacles originally associated with stop-motion, a necessary departure surely in this computer-driven age of filmmaking. These films are as resolute in their interiority, their exploration of confined spaces, and their decidedly unspectacular characters, as early films were in realizing epic tales of heroes and monsters. Templeton seems to revel in unveiling the mystery and perversion of the actual as much as those previous films did in their joyful creation of the fantastical. Ultimately you are left with something as unsettling as works by Jan Svankmajer or the Brothers Quay, but more so for its seeming ordinariness than its absurdist or macabre nature.

Templeton has recently completed her latest work, a major step in both technique and ambition; a 30min stop-motion adaptation of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf which recently aired on television in Britain. (How cool is that!) If you enjoy Dog, I suggest purchasing it.