What’s curious is that both this week’s and next week’s selection are films I encountered when seeking out different films entirely. In the case of this film, I was seeking a comedy called Motherland instead came across this stark, artistic, wide open to interpretation film produced by British fashion designer Ozwald Boateng that I found to be very intriguing.
Typically, in a short film one is looking for an idea that fits the form and tells a complete story. It’s hard to find a better example than this film. Not to mention that the film does allude to the possibility of a larger story, but for the fragment it decides to tackle it handles it fairly perfectly.
Follow the link below to view the film.
For a short, I believe this one has made the internet round fairly successfully. However, I didn’t see it until recently. It is likely one of the most powerful, effective, and shortest shorts I’ve seen. Dialogue in this story is incredibly sparse. It’s predominantly visual. Enjoy!
Whether a jack-in-the-box is one of your pet phobias or not, you have to admit there’s something inherently creepy about them. This short plays with that notion extremely well. Enjoy!
A tip of the hat to Scott E. Weinberg for pointing me towards this one. Filmmaker Adam Green does a Halloween-related short film every year. This year’s related directly to the film Halloween and is very funny. There are other videos on the site as Green has made 14 such films. Enjoy!
Follow the link to view this or all the films:
I honestly cannot say that I watch that many music videos anymore. In part, because the two channels initially created in part to broadcast them scarcely do anymore. The other reason is that, at least with many popular music acts, videos are virtually bereft of narrative and scarcely events any more as they once were. Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” is a recent exception that proves the rule.
However, I’ve been told that storytelling, with smaller more independent-minded (if not in musical styling or label) do do some interesting things with the form.
One example I stumbled upon was this video by Russian boy band Heroes which depicts scenes of the German invasion of Russia in 1941. It is animated uses some interesting techniques and is about the story not necessarily the band, though they are clearly personified in the video.
Enjoy!
David Michôd is a writer/director (and also actor) who has made his presence known to me through a few very intriguing, if not quite brilliant shorts. He also has a co-writing credit on last year’s Hesher, which is quite impressive.
His two shorts can be found below. Bear in mind both contain adult language and situations:
Spider
Crossbow
Crossbow from Aquarius Films on Vimeo.
David Michôd is a writer/director (and also actor) who has made his presence known to me through a few very intriguing, if not quite brilliant shorts. He also has a co-writing credit on last year’s Hesher, which is quite impressive. His two shorts can be found below. Bear in mind both contain adult language and situations: Spider
Crossbow from Aquarius Films on Vimeo.
OK, I know that I promised that I wouldn’t let 61 Days of Halloween interfere with normal posting activities. For a while, I was keeping up on this series at least. Then last weekend I slipped.
To make up for it. I figured I’d choose a great film that needs minimal introduction. We recently lost Chris Marker the director of La jetée one of the most influential shorts in the history of film. It’s composed of stills. It’s certainly inspired me (examples here and here), countless others and was one of my favorite discoveries last year. Enjoy!
Here’s another short that comes from a cinematic legend’ school days. This is a silent (the score, which is very appropriate was added later on), surrealist piece by Orson Welles made when he was 19.
There are commonly referred to images throughout and it’s tonal more than anything else and effective being as such. There will be some discomfort for modern viewers as there is an actor in blackface, my assumption is that it’s done for effect and commentary.
Here’s the blurb from the site that hosts it:
The Hearts of Age is the first film made by Orson Welles. The film is an eight-minute short, which he co-directed with William Vance in 1934. The film stars Welles’ first wife, Virginia Nicholson, as well as Welles himself. He made the film while attending the Todd School for Boys, in Woodstock, Illinois, at the age of 19. The plot is a series of images loosely tied together, and is arguably influenced by surrealism. This once-rare film is easily seen today thanks to DVD extras and sites such as YouTube. Many point to it as an important precursor to Welles’ first Hollywood film, Citizen Kane. Welles and Vance were college friends. The latter’s only other film on record is another student short – an adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in 1932.
To view click the link below:
The Movie Rat 