» Posts Tagged ‘short’
'Solipsist' - an Experimental Short That Beautifully Blends Practical and CG Effects
What do you get when you mix experimental film with fantasy via Jim Henson? Andrew Huang’s new short film, Solipsist, provides a beautiful and vaguely disturbing mind-trip of an answer. Some of you may recognize Huang’s name from his earlier viral short — Doll Face. For a film that started as a Kickstarter project last summer, it’s pretty impressive to see how quickly Solipsist was finished and released — especially considering Huang did a large chunk of the post-production himself. Coming off its recent win of the “Special Jury Prize for Experimental Short” at Slamdance, the short is now available to watch in full, along with some very intriguing “making of” footage that reveals some surprising use of practical effects: More »
I mentioned previously that I’d shot a micro-short to test out the RED SCARLET, and here it is. To put the camera through its paces, we wanted to use it in a real-world setting instead of shooting charts in a studio — but we also didn’t have the time or budget to put together a “real” short. What we set out to make (and what we ended up with) is something more than a series of test shots, and something less than a proper short. This was a no-budget, quick production on which everyone donated their time. Let me know what you think! More »
I shared my first impressions of SCARLET-X #00072 but hadn’t yet had a chance to put the camera through its paces properly. I wanted to do a real-world shoot instead of a simple test, so I sketched out a one-page scenario and got together with DP Timur Civan, co-director Raafi Rivero, and actor Harlan Short to put together a rooftop short. Because of holiday commitments it might take us a bit of time to put together, so in the meantime here are some brief thoughts and images from the shoot: More »
Do you ever worry that all your freely available online information makes you a potential target for stalkers who may be psychotic/dirty/violent/evil? If so, don’t watch “Take This Lollipop,” a short film that uses Facebook to make you a central character of its story.
Click through to the site itself and connect to Facebook for the full experience, but if you truly are paranoid about online privacy and want to watch what happens without putting yourself at fictional risk, here’s an example of what viewers get: More »
Dan Trachtenberg’s unoffficial short film Portal: No Escape, based on Valve Software’s videogame series Portal, brings to mind a few talking points. One of them: if you want eyeballs on your short, picking an existing franchise is a great way to ensure you’ll get them (of course, Hollywood uses this same logic to make remakes and adaptations ad naseum). You could do worse than a franchise like Portal, though, which is a terrifically clever series (Portal 2 is one of two videogames I’ve found time to play in the past year). Shot on a RED with anamorphic lenses, the short is extremely well-made: More »
I won’t be surprised if you’ve already seen these, given the first short here has 3.3 million views at the time of this posting. Not bad for a couple of short commercials sponsored by STA Australia and shot on the Canon 5D Mark II and 7D. This triumvirate of travel videos covers 3 guys, 44 days, 11 countries, 18 flights, 38 thousand miles, and a terabyte of footage, and are based on concepts of “movement, learning and food.” Here they are: More »
The terrific crew over at Short of the Week has launched Short of the Week Presents™, a curated series of shorts premiering online. SotW helps with with online launch planning and by bringing media and industry connections to the table. It’s open for anyone to submit; here’s “A Family Portrait,” their first third curated launch (other than their own Thomas Beale Cipher), a deservedly award-winning rotoscoped film by Joseph Pierce: More »
I always find it comforting to watch the early work of big-time directors. Not because it’s terrific or terrible — it’s usually somewhere in between, which just goes to show that you never know where your filmmaking career is headed. The important thing is to get started. Christopher Nolan
Joanna Lurie's Atmospheric 'The Silence Beneath the Bark' Mixes 2D Photo Textures with 3D Characters
With so much ongoing coverage of NAB, it’s easy to get lost in the technical side of filmmaking. I don’t want to give the storytelling side short shrift, however, so here’s the evocative and beautiful dialogue-free animated short “The Silence Beneath the Bark,” which was shortlisted for an Oscar this year. Joanna Lurie filtered and modified photos in Adobe Photoshop to create abstract, textured backgrounds, and then brought to life animated 3D characters. It’s easy to forget about the technical details and get lost in the fictional setting, however — as it should be: More »
Eddie O’KEEFE’s no-budget short “The GHOSTS” was shot in a small town west of Chicago this year, but manages to effectively evoke a bygone American era. One kid takes a baseball bat to a mailbox in the film, which I’m pointing out only to launch into a personal anecdote: growing up in North Carolina, some neighborhood ruffians were busting up mailboxes with bats, and so our neighbor filled his mailbox with bricks. A kid hit the box, broke his hand, sued the neighbor, and won. True story. I think. Anyway, check out Eddie’s skillful, atmospheric, playful short: More »
I meant to post this months ago, but like so many stories on this under-staffed (single-staffed) site, it slipped through the cracks. Then the NewTeeVee article Forget Festivals, Go Online Instead re-brought it to my attention, and so here it is: if you haven’t already seen The Thomas Beale Cipher, the animated short directed by Andrew S. Allen and produced by Jason Sondhi (both from Short of the Week), here’s the 10-minute texture-tastic mystery in full: More »
Oscan-nominated Irish animator Ruairi Robinson directs this 13-minute short starring Where the Wild Things Are‘s Max Records, in which robotic home companionship comes with a price. Don’t be fooled by the smiling face: this isn’t G-rated. More »
Urban historian Steven Duncan and videographer Andrew Wonder journey into the tunnels underneath New York City in the fascinating and aptly-named Undercity, a 30-minute short shot on a Canon 5D in the city’s subway tunnels, sewers, and abandoned subway stations (and on the Williamsburg bridge). Undercity is a highlight of recent DSLR projects, as the small size and low-light capability of these cameras enable this video to be made at all (most of the filming seen here is illegal). The short also includes interviews with the people you might not encounter during a visit to the city: residents of the tunnels themselves. Highly recommended. More »
The filmmakers behind Wallace and Gromit have created what is billed as “the smallest stop-motion animation ever.” Shot on a CellScope attached to a Nokia N8
This beautiful and touching stop-motion short by Kirsten Lepore just won a Vimeo Community Choice award, and deservedly so. On a basic level it’s a perfect example of anthropomorphism, as we assign emotions and desires to what are literally piles of dirt. Going beyond this, the relationship metaphor feels derived from real life, negating any sort of escapism to be had at the hands of what could otherwise be merely cute animation. Highly recommended. More »
Here’s a 10-minute, DSLR-shot movie about movies. Directed by Nuno Rocha and shot in Austin Texas. It might be a bit meta, but it comes with the message for screenwriters to treat your characters like they’re real people… More »
“Umbra” is the latin word for “shadow”, and makes for a fitting title for Malcolm Sutherland’s enchanting short. Malcolm was recently selected to provide an animated promo for the Vimeo Festival + Awards, and I found the Canadian animator’s latest to be an immersive and otherworldly 5-minutes, worth watching more than once: More »
This is a guest post by Mike Jones, Lecturer in Screen Studies at the Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Filmmaking is full of traditions. These traditions are the “way things are done,” they are what is “expected,” they are “industry standard,” they are “default” and “accepted.” This is all fine and dandy until we recognise the innate implication of such Traditions is to imply Right and Wrong – that there is a correct way to do things and deviations are “incorrect,” not “acceptable” or, worse still, not “professional.”
These traditions manifest themselves in all manner of guises – creative, technical, business, logistic. I have written previously about how the tools of filmmaking (particularly software) possess internal philosophies that enforce traditions – traditions which may or may not be a good fit for your own creative processes. In a similar light, there occurs to me to be another long-standing and entrenched tradition (one that may not be serving emerging and indie filmmakers as it should) that needs to be questioned. That is the significance of the Short Film. More »
Pixel art, along with its musical counterpart the chiptune, describes a game, video, or song produced on old computer equipment (or produced to seem like it was produced on old computer equipment). I suppose pixel art is no different from any revivalist pursuit, but there’s something uniquely funny about designing for a 192×160 screen (which is less resolution than the image at left) in an era of 1080p (and higher) resolution content. In an era of over-produced pop stars and slick but empty movies, perhaps that’s exactly the point! Simon Cottee’s 10-minute documentary on pixel art makes for an interesting follow-up to the retro-yet-high-tech short PIXELS posted here a couple weeks ago. More »
The Last 3 Minutes, a DSLR short from director Po Chang, reminds me a bit too strongly of a video released a year ago by director Chris Milk, entitled Last Day Dream. Even the titles are similar! Both videos are shot in their entirety from a first-person perspective, enabled by the small size and maneuverability of the DSLR du jour, the 5d Mark II. Here they are in chronological order (Last Day Dream was released a year before The Last 3 Minutes). NSFW language in the former: More »
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