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!
There’s not going to be a lot of lead-up to this short. First, I must thank one of my frequent readers for suggesting it to me, as it is a short I truly enjoy. As for the film itself, this is what happens when Salvador Dali meets Walt Disney, literally.
Destino
Here’s a film that very quickly proves that shorts can have layers to them and also have pretty interesting structures. There’s flashback in here but it’s not in your face about it, there’s a precise trigger but that comes later and there’s a bit of psychology at play too as the subject of this piece is re-examining his life because of a rather mundane, yet significant moment he’s going through.
I also enjoy that this short was created based on a monologue and produced by a theatre program for young people. All in all it serves everyone who comes in contact with it, artists and viewers alike.
Typically, these shorts come to my attention on Twitter either randomly or directly from feeds I follow. As I was watching many a short one day to make these posts I noticed many of them cam from Short of the Week. They really do have great stuff and post great blurbs. I really adore this short and the blurb that accompanies it by David Masters, so I have quoted it below. Enjoy!
Living in an average British suburb, Barney drives an average car to an average office where he works an average job. He’s an average bloke, with one important exception: he lives life upside down.
On a technical level, Reverso gets everything right—quality 3D animation, realistic lighting, and complex yet easy-on-the-eye rendering. Yet in today’s democracy of filmmaking, technical ability isn’t enough to stand out from the crowd. What makes this film special is its bold visual storytelling.
Reverso is a masterclass in how to tell a story without dialogue. Strong characters and visual cues are used to establish viewer expectations, build the conflict, and draw the story to an inevitable conclusion that despite its sadness, is also uplifting (both literally and figuratively).
The filmmakers devoted careful thought to establishing characters through visuals. Barney, the lovable protagonist who navigates his upside-down world with a cheeky smile, and moves his too-long limps with lolloping grace, is based on a chimpanzee. Barney’s Dad, a soft, kind, maternal man has the rounded belly of a greedy gorilla, and spends his whole life wearing pink slippers. The office bully, Humphrey, is petty and mean, with the ugly face and sharp features of a rodent.
In its visual-only storytelling, its choice of office setting, and its thematic focus on difference, Reverso is reminiscent of the Jaime Maestro animation FriendSheep.
Reverso is a playful story with a serious message. Launched as part of the ArtFx school’s 2012 promotion, this is the first animation featured on Short of the Week from the Montpelier-based school of special effects and 3D animation. If it’s a sign of what’s to come from ArtFx, I’m excited to see more.
Helena Bonham Carter and Ben Kingsley in A Therapy (Prada)
At the time of his arrest I wrote an editorial on Roman Polanski. It’s not really topical unless there’s a new development with regards to his status so I don’t foresee reporting it any time soon. I will merely state that I watch films and the works of filmmakers. I do not confuse the artist and the man, nor do I allow my perception of creative persona to color what my thoughts are on a person and vice versa. After all, Woody Allen still releases a film a year on average and his scandalous divorce from Mia Farrow is barely mentioned anymore.
Having said all that, here are some interesting things to note about this very short film Polanski has made for Prada. First, it’s a short film commissioned by a corporation, which is back en vogue since BMW started making a few for web consumption. The second thing is the film is completely about the performance of Ben Kingsley and is a great example of a flashback not taken. You can see in his face there’s a reverie, a remembrance but we see it only in his face and not in actuality. It’s great stuff.
In keeping with the concurrent themes of animation, the “amusement park studios” I also got around to thinking (based on last week’s post) about some lesser-known or under-utilized characters. I think that the animated short proceeding a feature is still a viable commodity and on occasion you will see a new attempt at one. Usually the new class are characters established previously in a feature, even when that character is new. Following the success of Who Framed Roger Rabbit there were a few shorts made to try and prolong the character’s notoriety. I’m not certain but I think these were the only two made. I thought, and still do think, they’re great. They’re a tip of the hat to the classics in a hyperactive interpretation of animated slapstick tropes.
Here’s a short I was reminded about recently by a post my cousin made on Facebook. There are a few reasons I decided to post it. In light of my recent trip to the Disney parks clearly the great shorts of the studio era. Here’s one that exemplifies Disney’s style even in a small piece, there’s music (lyrics included) and emphasis on visuals. It’s a fluid piece that encapsulates the dream-state implicit in the story. It’s very well done.
I first saw this film a long while ago on a site called Atom Films, now atom.com. It was likely the best film I saw when I did frequent it. It’s a simple and beautiful film that tells a wonderful tale of first love and exploits many filmic elements well.
I was fortunate to find this film again after so long although in three parts. With all of them posted below it should flow well enough.
Yet again I’d prefer to introduce you to an animator through one quick example of his style rather than a barrage. Should you enjoy it there are many examples of his works on Youtube and elsewhere on the web.
Below you will find some biographical information on Švankmajer, which accompanies the YouTube video:
Švankmajer (born 4 September 1934 in Prague) is a Czech surrealist artist. His work spans several media. He is known for his surreal animations and features, which have greatly influenced other artists such as Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, The Brothers Quay and many others.
Švankmajer has gained a reputation over several decades for his distinctive use of stop-motion technique, and his ability to make surreal, nightmarish and yet somehow funny pictures. He is still making films in Prague at the time of writing.
Švankmajer’s trademarks include very exaggerated sounds, often creating a very strange effect in all eating scenes. He often uses very sped-up sequences when people walk and interact. His movies often involve inanimate objects coming alive and being brought to life through stop-motion. Food is a favourite subject and medium. Stop-motion features in most of his work, though his feature films also include live action to varying degrees.
A lot of his movies, like the short film Down to the Cellar, are made from a child’s perspective, while at the same time often having a truly disturbing and even aggressive nature. In 1972 the communist authorities banned him from making films, and many of his later films were banned. He was almost unknown in the West until the early 1980s.
Today he is one of the most celebrated animators in the world. His best known works are probably the feature films Alice (1988), Faust (1994), Conspirators of Pleasure (1996), Little Otik (2000) and Lunacy (2005), a surreal comic horror based on the work of Edgar Allan Poe and the Marquis de Sade. Also famous (and much imitated) is the short Dimensions of Dialogue (1982), which shows Arcimboldo-like heads gradually reducing each other to bland copies (“exhaustive discussion”); a clay man and woman who dissolve into one another sexually, then quarrel and reduce themselves to a frenzied, boiling pulp (“passionate discourse”); and two elderly clay heads who extrude various objects on their tongues (toothbrush and toothpaste; shoe and shoelaces, etc.) and use them in every possible combination, sane or otherwise (“factual conversation”). His films have been called “as emotionally haunting as Kafka’s stories[1].”
He was married to Eva Švankmajerová, an internationally known surrealist painter, ceramicist and writer until her death in October of 2005. She collaborated on several of his movies including Faust, Otesánek and Alice. They had two children, Veronika and Václav
This post serves two purposes in essence: one it serves to highlight a great young talent in animation (Gints Zilbalodis) and second to steer you towards a great Twitter account. I would not have seen this if I didn’t follow @ShortOfTheWeek, which is a great resource if you want to discover shorts on your own time. The film was uploaded to Vimeo, the more cinematic video site and is accompanied by this text written by its creator:
My name is Gints Zilbalodis, I’m 17 years old and this has been my passion project for the last year an a half. It started as vague ideas of a cat, ocean and overcoming fear. Then through numerous battles with the script it shaped up to something similar you can see now. After seven drafts I felt that it was ready to start storyboarding, but the film kept evolving all the way until the sound mix was done. I kept learning about filmmaking everyday, going through all of the different processes.
I chose the cat as the main character mainly to save time with exposition, because people know that generally cats are afraid of water. So I could just jump right into action. Plus cat is a fairly small creature and the ocean seems even bigger to him. And of course cats are much easier to draw than humans.
The film’s music is by my friend Bertrams Pauls Purvišķis who helped a great deal to tell the story the way it was intended. Music had a lot of to convey in very little time and it came out much better than I could’ve ever expected.
I’ve been delaying the release for quite some time, because as I learned by making it, a lot of mistakes made earlier when I didn’t have the experience had to be remade from scratch. I’m glad it’s finally done and I can show it to the world.
I will only further comment by saying its very visual but the music is brilliant, enjoy!
The Movie Rat 