Short Film Saturday: The Dot and the Line
I love Chuck Jones. It was really in shorts such as these where he made his presence known and stood out from the other animation giants of his era. This one is short, simple and brilliant.
Short Film Saturday
Short Film Saturday: The Night Before Christmas (1905)
As has been noted here before, Edison was not just a technical innovator in film but he also brought many stories to the screen for the first time. Here is another very fitting for this holiday season.
Short Film Saturday: A Christmas Carol (1908)
I’ve already mentioned on more than one occasion that it was Thomas Edison’s studio that brought many a classic piece of literature to the screen for, if not the first, one of the first times. Here’s a very brief and very early filmic rendition of one of my favorite all-time stories Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.
Short Film Saturday: The Lunch Date
This is a short film you’ve likely seen by now. I lost count of how many times I saw it in film school. It may not be my favorite, but it is a textbook example of structuring a short and building a tale visually. Enjoy!
Short Film Saturday: From London with Love
I believe in nothing before its time, which is why even though I’ve seen it, and it’s already quite popular on YouTube; I am only posting this holiday-themed film from Burberry now. While I have discussed in the past that commercial-films can be artful (See example one and two). This one is interesting in another way: it also blurs lines of theatre and film as Old Hollywood musicals did in big numbers. It also starts Romeo Beckham, the son of a international footballer David Beckham.
Short Film Saturday: The Immigrant (1917)
This is an important short film on a number of levels:
In no particular order: it was added to the National Film Registry in 1998, it’s topical yet again and always has been; and it’s a Chaplin film that works as a great intro to his work as an actor, writer and director just to name a few that jump instantly to mind. So after some brief discussion on the version I linked to, enjoy!
You can view The Immigrant quite a few places on line. In two other links I saw it run at 22:30 and 20:00 respectively based on different frame rates. I chose the one here for the best image. The track is silent. The 22:30 on YouTube has a decent score, the 20′ on Archive.Org starts the soundtrack emulating a steamboat horn.
You can view it here.
Short Film Saturday: Blik
A simple dialogue-free tale about a young boy’s crush on a new older neighbor. Intriguing primitive design to the characters, well done all around. Enjoy!
Blik from Polder Animation on Vimeo.
Short Film Saturday: Demoni
I am not the audiophile my brother is so my lamentations of the lack of creativity in the music video is usually unfounded and based on a very ignorant familiarity with solely mainstream offerings. It’s usually on the independent scene in both film and music where the mavericks can be found. When they merge you get great things like Theodore Ushev’s short/video Demoni which highlights the eponymous single by Bulgarian folk band Kottarashky & The Rain Dogs.
Short Film Saturday: The Fly (1981)
I when watching this film preferred to take a textual approach rather than a subtextual one. Regardless, it’s one of the most impressive pieces of first-“person” perspectives I’ve seen. For more of a read and more of a background on this film check the post on The Dissolve that drew this piece to my attention.
Short Film Saturday: Katasumi (1998)
With this being the last Short Film Saturday entry before Halloween I figured it was time to kick up the selected horror film. Katasumi one of the short films that acted as a precursor to The Grudge films in the US, and Juon in Japan, does that in three short minutes: it features a simple set-up, unsettling soundtrack and a rate on incidents. Enjoy and Happy Happy Halloween (Silver Shamrock)!
