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There is a lot of ways to make a short film work, mercifully I’ll spare you (and myself) from attempts at classification right this very moment, but instead will describe the particular type of short film Mei Ling is via contrast: if the essential difficulty of short film is exposition, the compressed run-time of a short project making it difficult to establish background for plot or character, then one popular way to mitigate this difficulty is evoking other references, via trope, or setting or prop, et al. to inform audiences of the situation at hand or the nature of its characters via a connection to other media they have previously seen. You see this a lot in genre short filmmaking naturally, as one of the great attractive forces of adventure, fantasy or sci-fi is world-creation, a difficult proposition in the short medium. This is not a denigration of this approach by any means, our recent feature, Reign of Death is a very adroit example.

Mei Ling though is the opposite of that, the type of film that instead plays things close to the vest, arriving at the scene and resisting the urge to explain—allowing things to unfold organically, as critical information arrives via a gradual implicit understanding by the audience. The Most Beautiful Man in the World is one of my favorite examples of this approach to short filmmaking, but it is a difficult row to hoe, as it demands a sort of patience and attentiveness from its audiences. At 15 minutes, much of it with little discernible plot development, Mei Ling certainly challenges audiences via its storytelling, in spite of, in my opinion, ultimately delivering in this department due to its expert rhythm and flow.

However if some get bored along the way, it’s fortunate that Mei Ling simply overwhelms you with ideas visually. Out of France, the short animation is the product of fruitful collaboration between a Goebelins alum, François Leroy, and Stéphanie Lansaque, a magazine art director and designer. The result is a short film where the creativity on display in shot after shot is mesmerizing. The film is one of the most successful I’ve thus far seen in incorporating 2-D aesthetics in a 3-D environment, but beyond that Ms. Lansaque’s background shows, as the environment of the film is a delight, invoking its Hong Kong apartment with the type of vintage, nostalgic detail world cinema lovers will recognize from Wong Kar Wai. Furthermore, frequent experiments in combining CG with photographs litter the film, and the credits, both opening and closing, are worth watching just for themselves. Really cool.

If that wasn’t enough, the filmmaking duo seem to transcend their specialties with a decided flair for filmmaking itself. I stopped counting the number of inventive shots I witnessed about halfway through. Neat smash cuts, slow zooms and brief, ephemeral scenes, really lure audience members into the assured direction of the film. Use of virtual cameras, whether it be POV’s or complicated jib shots are always tasteful, unlike a certain other famous French co-ed animation team.

Mei Ling is on the internet via Fluxus, the Brazilian festival we spotlighted a while back. Due to ownership protections we can’t present the film properly in the shadowbox, but hopefully that provides you with a good excuse to check out some of the other entries via the Fluxus website, as there are several quality films. I’m thankful to have found this one; in country notable for its animating talent, Mei Ling is in my mind the most notable French animation since Skhizein.

To appreciate the enormity of this loss one must realize that despite the large amount of money animation in Japan generates, feature films account for a relatively small portion of it. Only a bare handful of features get released per year, and most of those are theatrical installments of successful TV series. In 2009 exactly 1 film based off an original property grossed over 1 billion yen (a little over 10 million USD)—Hosoda Mamoru’s excellent Summer Wars. So, someone such as Kon who made daring and intelligent films; films that crossed genre boundaries and appealed to diverse audiences, will not be missed solely for his genius but also for his scarcity. Really no one else in anime is making films for the audience that Kon appealed to.

So I’d like to honor Kon Satoshi here by sharing short films of his, however the pickings are slim. As I’ve noted before, shorts are not popular within anime. Generally if you want to isolate the early creative work of certain directors you look towards episodes or sequences within large television series or movies, despite the fact that attribution is sometimes near-impossible to tease out.  All the same, I have brought for you today two pieces which provide a small sample of Kon’s work, and provide an excellent taste of his style and thematic preoccupations—especially if you have never discovered his films.

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This first short film is a super-brief one minute piece directed as part of the Ani*Kuri 15 project, a multimedia scheme where one minute short animations played on TV and the web. In the film a girl waking up discovers exhibits a literal disconnect in the process of waking up.

Click above to view “Good Morning”

This second choice may be considered by some purists to be a reach, but marked the first time the world took stock of Kon as a name to watch out for. A work from 1995, a full two years before his directorial debut with Perfect Blue, Kon wrote and provided art direction for Magnetic Rose, a 45 minute film segment that screened theatrically as part of a short film triptych called Memories.

Memories remains the most ambitious and enduring work of its kind, as a staggering amount of talent coalesced around its creation. Each of the three short films are directed by different, acclaimed directors, and based off of short manga pieces by Akira-creator, Ôtomo Katsuhiro. Magnetic Rose’s actual director is the legendary Morimoto Kôji, the main creative force behind the acclaimed Studio 4c. Morimoto though has a track record of serving as a mentor to great talents, (Michael Arias, director of Tekkon Kinkreet is among his protegees) and that coupled with works like the studio’s Genius Party omnibus, which he helped spearhead, demonstrate that Morimoto is not scared of collaborating with and accommodating artists of great vision. In Magnetic Rose, via his writing and artistic input, Kon Satoshi proved he was up to the challenge of going toe to toe with some of the Anime World’s great luminaries, and now piece is seen as the most memorable of the film.

Click to Watch “Magnetic Rose”. Segmented into 5 YouTube Parts.

As I mentioned, the film is a hefty 45 minutes long, but is highly recommended. A gothic ghost story in space, three astronauts come across a wrecked space ship and enter a surreal reality built upon dreams. Created the same year Ghost in Shell came out, Magnetic Rose is similarly a touchstone work for a generation of serious, philosophically-minded anime fans, and is still frequently discussed 15 years later. I encourage you to check out the film above, or check out the whole of Memories, which conveniently is streaming right now on Netflix.

Until his death, Kon Satoshi was in the middle of work on a new film project, MADHOUSE’s Yume-Miru Kikai. The status of that film is unclear at this time, but hopefully we’ll be treated to one last major work from this unique film voice.

Your Lucky Day is not for the faint of heart. Dan’s film is dark, vulgar, and unearths some of the deep, disturbing thoughts we all harbor. The characters are rational people thrown into a dire situation forced to confront the ultimate dilemma: moral judgement against self-preservation.

Dan’s film has been touring festivals for a few months now. I first caught it at the Seattle International Film Festival where it screened in the same program as my film, The Thomas Beale Cipher. See Dan’s motion design work at Oh Hello.

You don’t come across the winners of big, big awards on online sojourns often. DVD compilations and the omnipresent Shorts International seem to suck them up. I consider BAFTA to be one of those big awards incidentally, and this film won it in 2005.

The subject matter of the short might have something to do with this state of affairs. Written and directed by Australian Hattie Dalton, the film follows the machinations and unrequited love of a technician at a sperm donation center. By American standards the film is a little racy,  lots of masturbation is pantomimed and that is only the beginning of the creepiness. Be forewarned. Couldn’t see Oscar touching this one, but Oscar is kinda lame (come on, it’s true).

Dalton’s is back on the festival circuit this summer with her feature film debut, Third Star. If you like The Banker, look for it near you.

Watch The Banker at:   HomeCorp.tv

via XXcinema

Hilleli doesn’t create films that run along a straight cause and effect path, instead he evokes a world and presents events in that reality. For his Bezalel Academy of Art and Design graduation film Between Bears, the events run as follows:

A black bear shaves off his fur, which falls in polygon shards that take flight into the forest, leading a growing group of hooded characters through landscapes and seasons. Eventually they can go no further as they reach the end of a jetty, where they pay witness to Cronenbergian, Lost Highway style switch between the forest bear who kicked off the journey and an iceberg floating polar bear.

As with his previous pieces (Three and a Half Seconds About Life, We Used to Call People Late at Night, inside/out), Hilleli employs minimalism with the honed skill of a surgeon. His frames (created with a combination of Maya and After Effects) are never over-stuffed or layered with eye-candy; yet they are beautiful to look at in their clean simplicity. So too is his approach to ‘story’. Events certainly happen but it would be stretching things to call it a narrative. Hilleli quickly builds a world and its rules and leaves you with the freedom to piece together the why and how of the actions you witness, which rewards repeat viewings and the inevitable re-interpretations. For example, why does the bear shave? Why do the people follow the fur? How does the switch happen? Instead of a set of infuriatingly unanswered questions, I came away from Between Bears totally satisfied with my peek into a world beyond logical reasoning.

Given the recent proof provided by Christopher Nolan’s Inception that audiences are willing to engage with complex narratives, someone needs to open their cheque book and get Hilleli working on a feature. I’ll be the first in line for that.

With well over 1 million views in aggregate, Avatar Days represents a giant success for Piranha Bar, the small group of Irish visual artists who put the film together during a 4-day festival challenge. That success can be credited to the short film’s strong visual hook which lures in the audience in order to play upon their inherent anthropological curiosity. However it is the way in which such an irresistible concept is refined that fascinates. Closer inspection reveals the film as a nexus for a whole host of currents and trends in short film and online video; a composite of some of the most exciting developments within the form.  Ultimately while the film does not do any one thing well enough to gain it status as a timeless classic, this confluence of stylistic flows within the film makes Avatar Days a remarkable document of our time.

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Avatar Days is a fascinating cross section of short film right now, both in the way it displays the traits of several distinct and popular movements within the loosely shared world of short film and internet video, and in how those traits lay across many different facets of the filmmaking process, linking the film to trends regarding visual techniques, filmmmaking communities, genre exploration and ultimately with its online success, exhibition.

Take the aforementioned visual hook, the replacing of the documentary subjects with their fantasy avatars. In doing so the filmmakers replicate one the most powerful trends we’ve seen throughout the last year, compositing animated footage into live-action scenes. This is of course the history of Hollywood big budget FX over the last two decades but now the expertise and the price point has filtered down to the short film set in a big way, driving new ways in which to employ such techniques. The novelty and appetite for this approach has driven huge numbers of YouTube views and unprecedented amounts of virtual column inches to films such as Panic Attack!, and Pixels. One may grouse about our propensity to continually reference these films, which by no means are unimpeachably wonderful, but one cannot dispute that the current rise of the special effects calling card has brought an unprecedented amount of eyeballs to short film online and is quite the buzz within the larger industry itself. It is the single biggest development within the short film ecosystem in several years.

Further than the mere presence of this technique though, is the way Avatar Days implements it. Rather than splendidly reveling in the artifice, a la GI Joe or Transformers, the film employs subtle tricks that trace back at least as far as the prototype for this kind of short film, Neill Blomkamp’s Alive in Joburg. Avatar Day’s long and fleeting shots, as well as drab color palate is a method of “roughing up” digital video to create a verisimilitude to low-budget reality footage productions, maximizing the “realness” of the fantastical CG by tricking the brain.

Alive in Joburg accomplished this through faux-documentary, a sort of on-the-scene, news reporting style, complete with shaky handheld cams, that found its way into commercials and feature films like Cloverfield.  Avatar Days is an actual documentary though,  of the more sedate, talking head variety, so the artistic challenge is choreographing images to words. While more thoughtful in its shots, the key similarity is in the “found” nature of its footage. Via long shots, the presence of the avatars looks as though they are almost accidentally captured. Furthermore, this sense of “found” footage extends to the fact that for the most part neither the sets nor locations that have been dressed and lighted, a common approach in documentaries which helps supply the verisimilitude that Alive in Joburg achieves in other ways.

While a mere curiosity in the above discussion of the visual approaches, the status of the film as a genuine documentary likewise fascinates, as it gains the film status within my favorite, and certainly one of the most eclectic of short film genres, that of the animated documentary. One might argue that in a postmodern remix culture the specificity of genre identity is no longer so important, especially in the case of animated documentaries, where the subjects and techniques are so diverse.  After all can you trace the similarities between Ryan and Dock Ellis?  I Met the Walrus versus Photograph of Jesus or the work of David Aronowitsch & Hannah Heilborn? Jonas Odell? The similarities are in some sense superficial. However I think there is anecdotal evidence at least that these superficial similarities are encouraging great work to be created, as all the above films and filmmakers have won major international awards in the last couple of years, including Oscar, Sundance, and the Cristal d’Annecy. While the genre is popularly traced back to the very beginnings of animation via Winsor McCay and his work Sinking of the Lusitania, there is certainly a modern resurgence going on right now,  and so I find it curious and interesting that Avatar Days can be one with some of the most commercially successful short films of recent vintage via its visuals, while at the same time claim kinship to films inhabiting one of the most artistically fecund genres.

Genre though is often a critic’s construction,  I do not know if Jessica Yu feels a bond with Chris Landreth, because they both made animated documentaries. Community however can be at the heart of the filmmaking process, and is definitely where the internet has made a truly radical impact on short filmmaking. The examples of web communities are numerous, whether they be the large technical message boards like DVXUSER, networking communities like the UK’s Shooting People, competition sites like Filmaka and Doorpost or at the broadest level, Vimeo, which has become a diverse destination for artists and enthusiasts to mingle virtually and share work. Wherever you look filmmakers have more resources in which to communicate, collaborate and share their work.

One of the interesting ways this manifests itself is the development of communities dedicated to particular, often new, techniques. The staggering amount of “Brick” films available on the internet is shocking to those who investigate, nurtured by large site communities like Brickfilms and Bricks in Motion. Not only do these sites provide camaraderie and technical know-how, but also enthusiastic audiences. To my eye Avatar Days is able to exploit a pair of such movements through the fundamental identity of the work.

First the short film can be qualified as a Machinima. Machinima, or films made using the animation-engines of video games, were introduced to many casual observers recently with John Hillcoat’s high-profile short film built using the game Red Dead Redemption, however they have long history preceding that. Indeed much of the early buzz for Avatar Days was helped along by machinima lovers which seeded the film in video-game blogs. Blog entries promoting the film often used “machinima” in their headline.

The second community Avatar Days connects with, it does so through the nature of its production. The film was created start-to-finish in an astonishing 4 days as part of a filmmaking challenge at the Darklight Festival in Dublin. While short film has always been a playground for the DIY crowd, more and more large national or local challenges and competitions are spurring people to go ahead and simply make a film. The growth of Filmaka and Doorpost, has helped separate people from their often self-defeating perfectionism, and help get them started on getting those 10,000 hours under their belt that Malcolm Gladwell talks about. General short film fans are even getting some good output from the trend. Outliers, a film we recently featured, was created through a 48 hour competition. The popularity of such events, often web-organized, spurs the more avant garde festivals such as Darklight, which specializes in art/technology convergences, to go ahead and have such contests, without which there would likely be no Avatar Days.

As I know nothing about director Gavin Kelly, Pirahna Bar or the circumstances of the film’s creation though, I cannot speculate as to how such communities aided in the creation of the film. However I don’t think their importance can be underestimated in the ultimate success the film had once it was brought online. Created for Darklight’s 2008 installment, Avatar Days it seems has been sitting on a shelf for quite a while, known and beloved to the small filmmaking community in Dublin perhaps, but I for one had no knowledge of its existence. However within a week of coming online, the buzz machine had already kicked in, as large mainstream movie blogs like Cinematical were linking to the film. As I mentioned before, filmmaking and other enthusiast communities can really help get a film off the ground via blog-linking, and driving viewing statistics, creating that virtuous circle that defines what it is to be viral. In this case, Avatar Days had even had another additional aid, which is that the subject of the film happened to feature a very large and tech-savvy audience/community who in turn passed the film around.

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Some of these amazing linkages embedded within this short are the result of filmmaker intent, others inherent in the circumstances surrounding the film’s production and its subject matter. Despite my desire to highlight geneology, tracing the film’s components outside itself, the diversity and abundance of these connections as well as the skill in their execution, should exculpate director Gavin Kelly and his team from any accusation of derivativeness or hackery.  I do believe that this confluence is in some sense serendipitous, the inevitable and happy by-product of an ocean of talent out there that, largely through web video I think, is increasingly interconnected and referential.

However, it easy to see how this can be interpreted as a formula: use trendy visual techniques, work within cutting-edge genres, utilize filmmaking forms that have devoted communities. Oh and choose your characters well; a film about watchmakers? Bad. A film about people who love cats? Good. Of course all of that is easier than it sounds, and lesson be learned, it is not a guarantor of a great film. Avatar Days itself as I hint at in the opening of this lengthy rant, suffers from the unforgivable sin of the documentary form—dull performances from its characters, sapping the film of a great deal of its narrative strength, and leading one to conclude that it is the sum of the film’s parts that are ultimately greater than the whole. However what interesting parts! And from a utilitarian standpoint, they work so well: large core audiences to build buzz, strong visual techniques to lure general audiences, even some highbrow connections for people who think too much about this stuff.

The result is irresistible. For a film about geeks in Dublin, made in 4 days by a bare bones outfit, rather than ask “how did this film go viral?” the better question might be “how could this film ever fail to do so?”

The second piece is a really interesting look at the work of Canadian filmmaker Jaime Travis in the NyTimes, one of those rare directors to receive widespread acclaim solely on the basis of his several short films. Travis is a master visual stylist—1960′s decor and generally superlative art direction play huge roles in his films, but he is adept at creating uncomfortable moods as well. The article has a good line when describing his films as “…a mixture of work by David Lynch and Douglas Sirk.” None of Travis’ films are online so I’ve only seen his latest work, The Armoire, which is on the festival circuit now. However it just might be my favorite film of the year so far, so needless to say I’m eager to see more.

Screengrab from the Patterns Trilogy

Thankfully I’ll get the chance. The article in the NyTimes is in advance of Zeitgeist Films releasing a DVD collection of 5 of Travis’ films, the complete Patterns Trilogy of shorts, as well as the first two films of what is being called The Saddest Children in the World trilogy, of which The Armoire, not included (d’oh!), is the third. I’m skeptical about DVD distribution for short films, but part of why I’m skeptical is because such releases usually get ignored by taste-making outlets such as the NyTimes. Also admittedly few filmmakers develop such an impressive catalog of shorts in which to draw upon as Jaime Travis does, so I imagine this collection has more of a fighting chance. Here’s wishing it the best!

I attended the Animation Block Party screening 2 days ago and saw a film that knocked my proverbial socks off. It told a compelling story about the deepest of desires told in beautiful hand-drawn animation. After the screening, I shared a few words with animator, Andreas Salaff—a nice fellow from CalArts. Then, to my surprise, a simple search brought up the film on Vimeo. Like I said, this almost never happens. It’s such a treat to see a film on the big screen and then go online to watch it again and share out with all your friends who couldn’t make the show. It makes a lot of sense, and really gets your film out there for many more eyes to see. I’d encourage more filmmakers to put their films online during their festival runs.

Lifeline, a student project, was named this year to be the third best student animated film by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (aka Student Academy Awards). And it’s well-deserved. The film follows an elderly scientist who uses his ingenuity to search through various dimensions for his long lost love. It’s set in a distopian 70′s-era future. I’m not giving away too much, but there’s a bittersweet ending that leaves more questions than answers on the final shot (not unlike a popular psychological film showing in the theaters these days).

The animation is, as I mentioned earlier, a very well-crafted hand drawn technique. Andreas has clearly honed his skills at CalArts, but it’s not his first foray into the genre. His work on an earlier short, Garuda, with a group of animators at the Gobelins in France had great results. Hand-drawn work is extremely tedious and very difficult to get right. It typically takes years and years of practice to get at the level of Bill Plympton (who seems to have been an influence on Andreas), Patrick Smith, and Sharon Colman. Each of them have honed their signature sense of movement over many hours at a work table. It’s rare to see a student at this level so early in a career.

In his description of the process, Andreas mentions how he started with what was essentially a series of beautiful shots and strung them (somewhat haphazardly) into a story. Hey, if this is what he calls slapping a story together, I’d like to see what he can do given some serious development time. We should all be wise and keep our eyes on where he goes next.

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.

Meet Rocky Salemmo. He’s a ramblin’ gamblin’ man. For the majority of his adult life Rocky has hustled bowling for a living.

Dunne’s hugely entertaining, character-driven doc tells the story of Rocky Salemmo, a larger than life man, who has spent the majority of his adult life in the bowling alley, gambling for a living. Like a heady combination of Bill Murray’s Ernie McCracken from Kingpin and Joe Pesci’s Tommy DeVito from Goodfellas (without the violent episodes), Salemmo feels like he was born to be in front of the camera. Rocky is a seriously hyper personality (he claims he doesn’t take coke as it brings him down), he tears up the screen like a wild man, spitting out stories like his life will end if he doesn’t tell them. It’s these rambling antidotes that form the basic structure of Dunne’s film, it feels like he just set-up his crew and waited for Rocky to let loose (much like a crew shooting a wildlife doc would do).

However, there’s no point in having a captivating character with a wonderful story, if the production values don’t match the levels set by the content.

Shot on the Sony EX3, the film features some sumptuous cinematography by director of photography Hillary Spera, as her camera seems magnetized to Rocky and his manic behaviour. The interviews are beautifully constructed and whether we’re in the low-lit bars or Rocky’s mother’s busy living room, Salemmo is always the given space he needs to frantically tell his stories. Often overlay the distinctive voice of our storyteller, The Bowler is also filled with a wealth of hugely effective cutaways ranging from random bowling alley shots, to close-up shots of Rocky bowling, laughing and dancing. Salemmo’s quick-fire delivery is perfectly matched with the fast paced snappy editing from Kathy Gatto and her cutting does a great job of painting the world in which Rocky believes he lives.

Dunne seems to be rapidly becoming a name to watch in the world of the documentary short and his distinctive style and charming stories are sure to win him an army of followers. If you liked The Bowler, be sure to check out the 2009 Sundance selected short The Archive, another fascinating short focusing on the owner of the world’s largest record collection.

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!

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Noel Clarke plays the fedora and trench coat wearing “gumshoe” in Reign of Death, hunting down a “rat”— in this case a rather retro-styled robot. A woman has been murdered making for front-page headlines in the town, and the two characters end up having a showdown in the same alleyway where she met her end.

The action in the film itself is not the most dynamic as the editing is slow and a couple of shots seem somewhat clumsily executed, but as mentioned the VFX are astounding and create a look very faithful to the film’s classic references. A VFX breakdown has been posted by the man in charge, Linus Hofman, which shows the extent to which CG additions are able to transform real-life locations into the grimy, dark, yet fantastical backdrops of the film’s action.  The result is a look very similar to two features of the past, Sin City and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, which used extensive virtual sets to achieve a retro-look.

That said, we have seen numerous examples over the past year and half of increased sophistication in CG/live-action incorporation from the amateur set, and while Reign of Death at its heart prioritizes aesthetics, the film distinguishes itself by having an honest-to-god story unfold in its 5 min runtime. Short film aficionados know that 5 minutes is plenty of time to tell a complete story, however several writers of recent calling-card pieces seem to have forgotten this. Director Matthew Savage though displays a good handle on the story, having elements unfold slowly—well, as slowly as one can in such a short piece—and manages to employ a few traditional short film tricks to joyfully upend expectations, including a late twist.

Produced for BBC’s Its My Shout, yet another UK short film scheme (does the government there never get tired of being so damn supportive?), Reign of Death is an enjoyable watch that has all the elements to succeed in attracting widespread interest. Even though it has yet to make its presence felt online, the traditional path has proved effective for it, as its star and director are now developing a feature adaptation. Placed online last month by Sci-Fi London, catch this short while you can.

The film opens to a very average suburban neighborhood before peeking into one house in particular. The loud and exaggerated sounds of rough sex are heard as the camera moves in on the vacuous face of a teenage boy—our main character. An unseen narrator relates the boy’s predicament: he lives in a home of rough folk, his mom and dad thinking nothing of engaging in boisterous sex in his presence, nor for that matter doing drugs and partying with other men. The narrator reveals himself to be the boy’s neighbor, and muses about the mom’s seeming indifference to the boy inbetween observations about how much he’d like to have sex with the older, permanently panty-clad woman.

The film in a way is a quest, albeit of the inward, self-reflecting type, as this neighbor attempts to empathize with and ultimately make sense of the boy. But for what reason? What is spurring the neighbors oratory? That is indeed what the film works up towards, but the exercise is perfunctory—you already know.

The short film thus exists as a meditative elegy, from the neighbor to the boy, and the visuals support the creation of such a mood, using frequent slow-motion to imagine scenes of alienation the boy might have experienced. Yet this empathy is disturbingly buttressed by the sexual fetishization of the mother, as the camera lingers erotically on the body she so frequently flounts in and around the home. Sexual longing on the neighbor’s part is part of his explanation for the boy’s state, yet that means the neighbor must in a way confront his complicity, a feeling if that is expressed in his voice, if not completely registered in his head.

There is no moral to the story per se, and if this elegaic mood fails to find spark within you, then you will find the short film bland and possibly even distasteful. Upon playing Sundance in 2008, many accused writer-director David Michôd of misogyny in the film’s depiction of sexuality. However I find the elegaic streak that Crossbow mines to be rare and wonderful in film, and kudos go to Michôd, because it is difficult to pull off. Indeed the film is strikingly reminiscent to one of the best films of this vein, Sofia Coppola’s work, The Virgin Suicides, a movie structured very similarly, with its title that undermines suspense, and its observant narration that wrestles with the exquisite sadness of seemingly senseless tragedy, and how it relates to sexuality and nostalgia.

Michôd is an Aussie who is part of the increasingly famous Blue-Tongue Collective, whose films have been featured numerously on this site and others. Spider and I Love Sarah Jane have appeared on our lists of our favorite reviews from 2009 and 2008 respectively. However I believe that this is the best short from the group that I’ve seen so far. Blue Tongue’s output relies heavily on surprises and twists, and nominally Crossbow is no different, and yet in practice the focus on atmosphere and mood rather than narrative trickery creates a feeling that the other films we’ve reviewed cannot match. Indeed Miracle Fish the Oscar nominee from this past year, is truly a film that I think wishes it could be Crossbow:  both films center on vacant, disaffected boys that suffer from some sort of abuse, before ending in violence. However whatever feeling the empty school in Miracle Fish tries to convey simply does not come across powerfully, unlike the images of the mother and the activity around the house in Crossbow, nor does the violence at the end of Miracle Fish,seemingly random, hold any sort of weight against Crossbow’s slow unfurling, made all the more powerful by how clearly it is foreshadowed.

Michôd has, like many of his other compatriots in the group, moved on to features. His debut, Animal Kingdom, played Sundance this year. I have yet to have a chance to see it, but will be taking the opportunity as soon as I can in order to see the continued development of this fascinating young  filmmaker.

via jasonbkohl.com

Well it seems that someone forget to tell Lucas Krost when he set out with his team from filmmaking collective Mondial Creative Labs to create the end of the world in Outliers for the International 48hr Film Competition. Outliers stars Mendy St.Ours, who came to the rescue when the previous lead jumped ship at the last minute, as a lone woman trying to make sense of and stay safe in a city besieged by an apparent lethal virus; where information is sketchy and the lone hope of a vaccine seems more than a little off. Throw in the mostly faceless voice of authority tracking the stages of human reactions to a crisis and you’ve got a nice conspiracy drama on your hands.

While Todd Brusnighan & Patrick Simkins’ script delivers believable dialogue and characters, the concept at the heart of Outliers is pretty run of the mill. What undoubtedly marks the film as noteworthy is the level of production value achieved over the 48 hour period. Given the genre ‘End of the World’ (the international round of 48hr didn’t require a line of dialogue, prop and character), Team Mondial have delivered a polished, entertaining short that is far superior to many of the films I see created without the arduous time restraint – despite the many howls of disbelief online they insist that the posted film is as presented at the end of the contest with no additional work.

To be fair to those thinking ‘WTF!’, Team Mondial came to this round of 48hr prepared with, “$500 + 200,000 in favors”, plus had already been through the 48hr process with their mockumentary short Neighborhood Watch, which is effective but no where near as ambitious. Locations were scouted and casting sessions held a week before the competition kicked off, then once the genre was assign the script was written from 7pm on the Friday to early Saturday morning and actors and locations finalised. The team shot straight for the next 24 hours, DPs Johnny St. Ours and Spencer Meffert armed with dual Reds fitted with Red Prime and Zeiss Super Speed lenses. To keep things moving, once a scene wrapped, the drive was hurried over to the Final Cut Pro editor, who worked from proxies, then 1080 cropped. Color correction was handled in RedCine, GFX in After Effects.

Outliers earnt Krost his second trip to the Cannes Film Festival Short Film Corner (his short Feels Like Drowning screened in 2008) and Team Mondial are said to have a feature in the works. Can’t see them needing more than week to pull that off.

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.

The concept in question is the existence of a “transporter”, that most desirable piece of tech to have filtered into the public consciousness via Star Trek. You know, “Beam me up Scotty!” and all that. In The Un-Gone the tranporter is real and the technology has been commercialized, yet apparently not made error-proof. At the start, a young married couple, Mr. Salinger and Maya, are about to take a trip to Britain thanks to “Kuala Lumpur Transit”. Maya is a little bit nervous about the impending departure, but her husband does his best to reassure her, talking about their future together, and ultimately broaching the topic of having a baby together before they eventually depart.

The woman is the one nervous about the procedure, but she makes it through without incident. Ironically it the man who suffers the mishap. It is hard to not spoil an 8 minute short, so I will refrain from going further with recap, though if you are a fan of Prof. Krauss’ The Physics of Star Trek, you may have already guessed at the film’s developments. There is a delicious sensation though to your own gradual understanding of Mr. Salinger’s predicament in advance of the character’s. Hopefully you can catch it before the clunky exposition provided by the transit firm’s executive spells it out for you.

Sadly it is this stretch directly after the big reveal that proves to be the weakest, as it falls down on one of the great strengths of the early part of the film which is the writing. It is rather impressive the way in which writer/director Simon Bovey effortlessly establishes the characters of the couple  early on while interspersing very natural lines into the dialogue that shed light on external factors. It has already been covered now, the ironic appeal of the man standing up for the transporter, unaware of how severely his faith is misplaced,  however in that opening conversation other examples of excellent screenwriting exist, most notably the conversation about having a baby.  Perhaps a baby is a bit of a blunt-force instrument—they are tremendous emotionally and metaphorically rich plot contrivances,  but this talk perfectly establishes the couples tenderness towards each other, as well their shared optimism for the future. As an audience we feel an instant connection to the couple, played by Stephen Billington and Linette Beaumont, as they act out this delicate balance between anxiety for the trip and excitement for the future.

There is a confident efficacy to Bovey’s establishment of character but it is the small throw-away lines that do magic in placing those emotions the couple share in context. Their optimism is perhaps something that is rare in this future-world. Lines such as the husband suggesting that the couple “apply” for a baby, or the excited reactions involved when the white British-sounding male announces that he’s received an “immigration permit” to go to Birmingham, England seem to broadly sketch out that this world adheres to that model of an aggressively-controlled, dystopian British society that seems to be de rigeur for futuristic depictions of the country (V for Vendetta and Children of Men spring to mind, must be the cameras). Ultimately these details do not further the plot, but they provide the kind of nuance that turns an average movie good, and a good one great, by immersing an audience into a setting that is more fully realized.

Such nuance is less evident after the big reveal. One wonders if there isn’t a better way to unveil the film’s twist than by simply stating it. Furthermore, while understandably Mr. Salinger is in shock, he is awfully slow to come to grips with the situation at hand. It’s exceptionally funny when sci-fi fans nitpick small details as unrealistic in the midst of an altogether ludicrous landscape, but The Un-Gone is sufficiently demure in its brand of speculative fiction that it does niggle the mind to wonder if even in generic totalitarian futures people would really use technology such as a transporter without understanding how it works. Evidently Popular Science magazine has closed up shop in this alternate world.

Still, the concept is too good and the execution and tightness of the short from a strictly filmmaking perspective is too strong for the film to be derailed in any meaningful way by such quibbles. The film has been successful on the festival circuit, playing over 70 of them, which is how I managed to see it a couple of years back. It created a sufficient impression on me at the time that I have periodically found myself searching for it online since, and I am pleased to find that on repeat viewing my estimation of its quality remains the same.

With its sci-fi trappings, pleasing twist, and lean runtime, I really do think that the film is well-suited for the internet. However the film does lack the visual panache that internet fans seem to clamor for. The lighting is dull and flat in that peculiarly British way us Yanks can never seem to understand, muddying up the color palate, and while the the reliance on set design and practical effects is admirable, the setting is sparse and stagey. One wonders at the possibilities for a script this smart if only it were made now, in this era of super-cheap CG. Either way don’t let that dissuade you from enjoying this fine film and appreciating the strengths it possesses. Maybe if we all do, it will go viral all the same.

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