A soldier awakens on a gray, deserted plane. He rises, stretches - is that a drop of blood we see on the ground? He removes his helmet. A large television set sweeps into view. He walks to it, pushes a video tape into the slot, and the tape begins to play. "Welcome to Heaven, you are dead." The soldier hastens away; another television set rolls in front of him. The soldier draws his gun. Can he put an end to death? Or do other states await him?
Ruairi Robinson 's idea was to make a story where the character starts out a hero, turns into a coward and ends up a fool. It's basically a big cruel trick played on him by whoever controls the afterlife... The subject is potentially controversial , but it's nice to watch a movie that has a really unhappy ending.
Ryan is a story about Ryan Larkin, an innovative, talented and gifted Canadian artist, who, thirty years ago, at the National Film Board of Canada, produced some of the most influential animated films of his time. Some year before dying, Ryan lived on welfare and panhandles for spare change in downtown Montreal When people think of documentary filmmaking, generally, they assume that it’s an objective medium. But Chris Landreth integrates photography and live-action footage with animation (it goes through 3D animation, to pencil drawing, to painting, to sketches) and uses supplemental or secondary animations to represent the psyche of the characters as you traverse through the story. In revealing Larkin’s inner landscape, Landreth has delivered us into a deeper, richer reality. We see the real Ryan Larkin that our eyes cannot see.
He, using Maya software, recreates Larkin as a fragile, incomplete person. We can see only a portion of a face. His body is breaking apart, his memories are haunting him and he's much more interested in the late artist instead of his own life. Using a technique called psychological realism, the movie shows the emotions of the characters in a way never seen before. We can hear the voice of Ryan Larkin and people who have known him, but these voices speak through strange, twisted, broken and disembodied 3D generated characters... people whose appearances are bizarre, humorous or disturbing. In one poignant scene, we see a young, complete Ryan, with hippie threads and long hair, come to life in his award-winning film Street Musique. He is filled with joy and soon begins dancing with his creations. Occasionally, we hear from other observers. Landreth also shows us his motivation: he sees elements of his mother in Ryan’s life.
Chris Landreth introduces himself to us in a funky restroom and then introduces the film's subject, Ryan Larkin, a brilliant animator in the 1960s and early 1970s. Chris shows us clips of Walking and Street Musique, Ryan's ground-breaking shorts. We now see Ryan as he is: emaciated, alcoholic, much of his mind gone; we meet Felicity Fanjoy, his love during his creative period, and Derek Lamb, his producer. Ryan talks to Chris in the dining hall of what is probably a homeless shelter or soup kitchen. Chris tries an intervention. We follow Ryan out into the street where he panhandles. The animation, which uses live footage, reveals the ravaged burned-out graceful man. When Ryan’s 2D drawings from Street Musique are dancing in step with Ryan's 3D character, we can also find an homage to another Canadian filmmaker, basically the mentor to Ryan — Norman McLaren — where Ryan’s character begins his dance and you see these Shiva-like 10 arms strobing:an homage to a piece by Norman McLaren called Pas de Deux, which came out around the same time that Ryan was really at his peak. You can buy Ryan (Special Edition).
Both the story, and the animation style are refreshingly original and beautifully told. Korean War, 1951 Little Manuk is playing on the streets of his village and dreaming of life at the front where his father is a soldier. He returns home to find a parcel on the doorstep and, thinking it is a birthday present, he opens it. But its contents will change his life. He wanders through streets of his Korean village and plays on his own. With an air of poignancy, we watch as he plays among the ruins of his town, watching an invading train fly past, forging new toys and acting out his dreams of becoming a soldier; just like his father. He is young, na ve and innocent; completely oblivious to the horrible nature of war. This brilliantly simple concept of portraying the horror of war through the na ve eyes of a child heightens the profound values Park is pushing through his film.
The little boy has so much character and is like no other character you've seen on the screen before. Manuk's 'cute' look was a conscious reflection of his innocence in a war-torn environment. We see the world not only through Manuk's eyes, but in his facial expressions and movements that also reflect his emotions without the need for a voice-over or dialogue. Birthday Boy is based on Sejong Park's own childhood experiences of growing up in Pusan, South Korea. The influence of his hometown is reflected in the landscape, architecture, and layout of the city pictured in the film. A sad, delicate story where the implications and the consequences are left off for the viewer.
Inspired by the work of stop motion animation masters Jan Svankmeyer, The Brothers Quay and the Lauenstein Brothers, Shane Acker sought to immerse the audience in gritty textural world inhabited by creatures composed of fabric scraps and bits of broken machinery.The fantasy artwork of Zdzislaw Beksinski and photographs of European cities destroyed in World War II inspired the scenic design. The non-verbal narrative is loosely based on the old English Poem Beowulf, and relies heavily on pantomime, combined with strong composition and staging to tell the story. The characters and sets are mostly comprised of every-day objects.
Although CGI, the movie will have a stylized look resembling stop motion. After witnessing the death of his mentor "5" by the hands of the malevolent construct, the rag doll "9" must confront his fears. Now "9" must destroy the creature and steal the talisman of trapped souls it carries as a trophy. 9 took Shane Acker over 4 years to make, but it really shines in the details. This short is textural, spiritual, and haunting, a real delight to watch.
Five minutes before his big performance, the Maestro and his persistent mechanical assistant are in preparation mode. As the clock ticks, life at the top is not all it seems. The multi award-winning Maestro blends an operatic aria with CG animation.
Géza M. Tóth put a great effort in the sound design: you'll notice how nothing has been left to chance. The "camera" roams 360 degrees around the little room so we see what's going on from all angles.
Doggy Bag is a 3d short by Guillaume Cassuto, Thomas Moine and Sylvain Perlot, three students from France’s Supinfocom school. At the same moment, in a bombed-out neighborhood, two starving tenants decide to eat the dog of the old woman who lives on the top floor of the building...
It's a macabre tale of the comically surreal lengths two men will go just to get a decent meal. The animation is snappy and thelighting excellent.
In an old forgotten military base far from civilization, a group of deranged military officers nurture their insanity. A volunteer soldier plummets to his death. A photograph is taken and sent by courier to a huge man, who adds it to his macabre collection. The message behind ‘Fallen Art’ changed during production. At the beginning Tomek Baginski wanted to make just a funny film about the army, but many things happened in the world while the crew was fine-tuning the storyboards.
Fallen Art is an exploration of animation itself, as it is done in very caricaturist CG but has the second level of being something of a stop-motion animation. The main assumption of the technique used in the film was the combining of the modern language of computer animation with the classical hand painting so that the picture would gain the feeling of an actual painting.
Adam Janeczeic directed one of the best animated videos I've ever watched.
Helium is so elegant for its choreography. This short reminde of some sequences of dancing fairies in Fantasia. The animation is perfect for its graceful timing of these Casper - ghosts.
Futurists Toys is a grotesque tale that sparks a sense of loss and amazement in the viewer via a dreamlike vision. It’s inspired by Depero’s paintings and his “Balli Plastici,” the “futuristic theatre of marionettes”.
Claudio Castelli wants to wake sleepy consciences from their mechanicist torpor. The story also touches issues raised by classic novels such as Dante's “Divine Commedy” and Manzoni's “The Betrothed” and wants to provoke thinking for young people ruled by routine.
Three animators struggle to make a film as the deadline rapidly approaches. If you ever lived through the creative crisis at the end of any group project will easily identify with the humour in The Deadline.
Stefan Marjoram designed this short to show how Aardman's stop motion heritage was not lost in the newly developed CG department. It is predominantly a lip-sync piece, it's funny and produces a laugh of recognition. The Presentators are a series of one-minute, 3D, computer-animated shorts made for Nickelodeon.
A new strain of a disease that could be dangerous to livestock herds is being discussed on the radio. A cow listening to the show naturally gets a bit worried about the topic. This is why cows shouldn't listen to the radio. What's a cow to do? Why, freak out, of course.
Barley Films was founded in Ireland in 2002 to produce entertaining animated films. This is its second short and it has gone on to win ten international awards and has screened in over one hundred festivals. Melina Sydney Padua makes a great work!
Metropopular is an animated short film about what the cities of America would say to one another if they could talk. Jonah Hall use a unique animation style. The characters are great and the plot is fun.
Frantic about a popularity contest in which these cities are competing, they jockey for top position while arguing between themselves. Highlighting their separate personalities, each city had his or her own reason why they should be America's favorite city.
The Setting:Night. Metropolis. Future? A pocket full of money. When a tramp asks him for some money, a cat has to struggle with his many internal consciences to come up with a decision.
Simon Bogojevic-Narath has created a surprising and rich world in 3-D computer generated animation.
Like many Pixar shorts, this film is completely free of dialogue, instead using music (played by the characters) and pantomime to tell the story. Andrew Jimenez and Mark Andrews show us what Pixar can do with four minutes and the simplest of story lines. This short is fun because it's funny and imaginative.
With one coin to make a wish at the piazza fountain, One Man Band tells the humorously captivating tale of a peasant girl who encounters two competing street performers who'd prefer the coin find its way into their tip jars. As the two one-man bands' rivalry crescendos, the two overly eager musicians vie to win the little girl's attention. You can buy Pixar Short Films Collection: Volume 1.
Kiwi was created by Dony Permedi, a student in the New York City School of Visual Arts, as his Master's Thesis Animation, with music composed and performed by Tim Cassell. Originally the main character wad going to be a chicken but Permedi found it an obvious choice. So he created Kiwi.
The animator's story is that of a kiwi bird who has a dream (he aspires to fly) and is willing to do anything to see it become a reality. This charming short is simple yet so powerful that it sticks in your subconscious. A great example of a dialogue free narrative, which reminds me of the first shorts of Pixar!
Romain Segaud codirected his first film, Tim Tom, with Christel Pougeoise, as graduating project at SupInfoCom. Tim and Tom are two little men (whose faces are in fact notepads!) trying to keep in touch with each other. But the Creator, a giant omnipotent hand, tries very hard to interfere with this. To succeed in their quest, they must face more severe perils! The plot is clever, full of intentional references to animation. Tim Tom is, in fact, a homage to the cartoon film, with touches from the Thaumatrope, the studio Aardman and the influences of Tex Avery. Segaud's inspiration for the film came also from Georges Méliès, Norman McLaren George Pal and Ian Svankmayer.
This short film boasts excellent timing and character animation. The characters designs are very simple and the animation is simply perfect. The film is funny but also complex because it exhibits multiple layers of meaning: it manages to mimic a stop motion/puppet like feel and to explore the boundless world of 3d animation. This is a high class and self-referential movie, where the heading titles are strictly correlated with the ending. An exceptional aesthetic and a technical quality gives originality to this 3d short film, which won the Grand prix des Imagina Awards 2003.
Jeff Fowler shows us how important it is to keep simplicity in mind. This 3d animation reminds me of the old Warner Bros cartoon. The animation is well done and the gags come rapidly throughout the film's 4 min. running time. Gopher Broke is a very entertaining 'toon! I enjoy this film’s visual style: everything has a dusty, worn down and weathered feeling. Even the vegetables have been handled in a way that makes them almost unnaturally colorful and appealing because they must have a hypnotic effect on the Gopher.
The entire story is built around one particular gopher’s scheme to rob the passing farm traffic of their vegetable harvests, hoping to get a free lunch. He finds himself on a road where trucks are hauling produce to market. He hits on the idea of shaking some of the produce loose for himself but other animals always beat him to the booty. Thus, the action continues to build as the Gopher’s frustration intensifies, leading to a climatic ending and surprise confrontation. Gopher Broke was playing as part of the Sundance Film Festival 2006 and was also nominated for the 2004 animated short film Academy Award.
Paper Rad is a three collective artist group, comprised of Jessica Ciocci, Jacob Ciocci and Ben Jones. The group's name come from an extension of a weekly alternative comics paper that Jones self-published, Paper Radio. The song is from Mixel Pixel's first album, Mappyland Paper Rad has performed at the Whitney Biennial, at the Liverpool Biennial, at the New York City Gallery Deitch Projects, as well as the Tate Britain. Their works include videogames remixes, Flash animation, and open source Web projects.
This artistic group narrates story of our times in a way that isn't filtered through big-media spin or the historical revisionism of academic pundits. Their works are constantly infused with rebellious attitudes and iconoclastic positions. They are part of an art establishment that seems distant to many young people who should be getting inspired by art. Their caleidoscopic imagery is the result of mixing psychedelic images with Op Art and the pop culture with humor! You can buy Taking out the Trash/Faces in the Trash.
Vache Folle is the first of Samuel Toruneux's short films. It won the Grand Prix IMAGINA 1997. The picture quality is nice and bright. The sound is well done and uses the stereo mix very well. A mad cow takes off from the prairie and flies away into a foolish trip. This is a very fun piece that takes you by surprise. I actually laughed a bit while I watched it. You can also watch Meme le Pigeons vont au paradise. You can buy Computer Animation Marvels.
The Pearce Sisters, directed by Aardman director Luis Cook, tells the black-hearted tale of two weather-beaten old spinsters who live on a remote strip of coast and eke out a rather dismal existence from catching and smoking fish. One day they heave a half-drowned sailor out of the sea and set about reviving him – but when he fails to appreciate their efforts, a dark and grim aspect of the sister’s way of life is revealed…
Luis Cook wanted somehow to mix 3d cgi with 2d. So he animated everything in the computer with cg models and then printed the frames out and worked them over in 2d. He then filled in the details and expressions and scanned it all over again in 3d. The 3d gives the characters a sense of reality, weight and volume which is important to the narrative. To hold it all together aesthetically Cook produced a fully rendered design for all 180 of the shots. The backgrounds were taken from the Photoshop layers as were all the textures placed on the models. Dialogue-free and chock-full of animation, the characters are harsh and unpleasant in appearance. Every detail is visible, from the strands in a bundle of fish nets to the rain beating on their weathered faces.
Feel free to submit your artistic creations: artworks, short comics or panel strips, photos, experimental videos!
About
The goal of Mellart is to promote experimental and underground culture in its various visual forms: animation, art, cinema and comics. It's directed by Marco Milone. He is both a chess and a comics journalist (his book Fumetti was one of the finalists of the Franco Fossati Prize), a poet (Geometria del silenzio, Sulle orme della speranza, Nel labirinto del delirio) and a writer (L'eterna condanna ed altri racconti). He was editor of «Inguine mahgazine», «Be Side» and «Solaris», and of the publishing house Cagliostro E-Press. He also plays chess. He's in the national correspondence chess team. His blogs are: Marco Milone Poeta, Beautychess.
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