Andrew S Allen

The Machine by Rob Shaw of Bent Image Lab is an entertaining stop-motion fable about a man-made machine who knows no bounds to his power. I’ve had this in my queue for a while but knew I couldn’t let it pass without sharing with you. I love Angela Poschet’s voiceover.

Description via Vimeo:

“The Machine is an animated fable following the path of an innocently forged mechanical creature. As his independence and knowledge of the world grows on his journey, as does his desire to conquer all that he encounters, from the pastures of a farmer to the realm of man’s entire world.

The story is in itself a mechanized apparition, the characters and scenery exisiting inside of an early 20th century nickel arcade and being driven forward by the gears of this machine.

The main character, the innocently created, human like mechanism whose power knows no bounds, thinks of himself as invincible, that no man or spirit could ever overpower him. Yet, the irony is that he himself is only a small part of a greater device, and in this case, a mechanized stage for passers by to waste a nickel in.

This film was shot over many hours at Bent Image Lab over the course of several months in 2008-2009. Animated using stop-motion puppets and sets, then composited together in After Effects, the film has a mixed media presence to it that is accentuated by the machine’s own collage like form.”