Category Archives: short film

Under The Solipsist Sea

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In a transformational work of experimental film-art wholly void of narrative yet skilfully filled with texture, color and intrigue in abundance, Los Angeles director Andrew Thomas Huang has created a beautiful and bewildering film that is grounded in the philosophical idea of solipsism—the theoretical perspective that the self is the only true entity to exist.

The film opens with two females positioned almost symmetrically joined upon a cube, who slowly begin to move almost as one and become mysteriously entangled by an endless filament of multicoloured twine. The twine grows, manifesting itself as an organic bonding force between the two female figures before vigorously transforming into an all-encompassing oceanic force of vibrant, tropical embellishment which engulfs the figures whole.

Delving deep into the subaquatic ocean floor, underwater creatures which bear a cunning contemporary resemblance to the creatures of renowned film The Labyrinth interact, bicker and duel using science fiction inspired morse-code. As the film returns to the sandy surface, each frame is dark, juxtaposing  shadows against vibrant Caribbean-infused colours and textures that appear smeared across the figures’ bodies and faces, who now appear to be males.

As the males’ heads dissolve like sand dunes in the desert rough and combine to make an explosion of electric sand mid-air, the enthralling pinnacle of the video comes shortly after the 8 minute mark and utilizes intricate slow motion and extraordinarily intelligent special effects. Featuring original sound and a musical score designed specifically for the film by Huang, the film most recently was named Winner of the Special Jury Prize at Slamdance 2012 for Experimental Short and is a Moo Studios and Future You production.

Infamous: The Fight Against Joseph Kony

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If you knew that a man created an army of criminals, solely meant to terrorize, mutilate, and kill innocent people, how would you react? If you then learned that he created this army by kidnapping Ugandan children right out of their homes, forcing them into sex slavery and to kill their own parents, you’re bound to wonder how this man could have gotten away with it, especially considering the numbers involved.

Joseph Kony, Ugandan guerrilla leader and war criminal, has been a violent force for 26 years and during that time he’s captured over 30,000 children. He’s forced them into his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and they’ve not only been stripped of their childhoods, but the notion that life is worth something. Over the past year, Invisible Children have taken it upon themselves to spread as much information about Kony and the LRA as possible, increasing awareness and the hope that he’ll eventually be brought to justice for his heinous criminal actions.

This video is the campaign, the message. Directed by movement instigator Jason Russell and excellently scored by Joel Preston West, it illustrates so much of why all of us should be actively involved in any capacity we can. The idea is to appeal to as large an audience as possible and make his name a household one—in other words, make him famous. The point is not to celebrate him, but to expose him for his severe behavior at an unprecedented global scale. The cause is too great to be ignored, and people are definitely responding.

Any help will be greatly appreciated. You can donate to the KONY 2012 cause, shop at the Invisible Children store, or sign their pledge. 

“Where you live shouldn’t determine whether you live.”

Summer, Sand and Sea Caves

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Sea Cave is the latest captivating short film to come from Australian artist, Benjamin Dowie. Based in Willunga, South Australia, Dowie is the Creative Director of Beanpole Productions where he shares his passion for producing film that captures the atmosphere and sentiment behind the simple moments in life.

With a serene soundtrack by Sea Oleena, Sea Cave illuminates the essence of dreamy summer afternoons by the sea. With a genuine nostalgic vibe, the film leaves you yearning for the feel of cool sand between your toes and the sound of crashing waves at dawn.

This is not the first time Beanpole Productions have caught our attention (see The Glass Landscape) and with their unique attention to detail and raw cinematographic technique, it is unlikely to be the last.

AB/CD/CD Leave You On Hold

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AB/CD/CD: On Hold on Nowness.com.

French filmmakers AB/CD/CD’s new short film, On Hold, may leave you feeling itchy, even a tad on edge. The clip, set to Factory Floor’s Real Love, is both hypnotic and pulsating, and complete with smashed kitchenware, dancing and leaping, and a never-ending set of stairs.

The short is a narrative of repetition, of short snippets repeated for emphasis, a resounding pattern. There is a tempo to the clip that increases—as will your blood pressure—with the progression of time. The constant and quick flicking between images drives a sense of purpose, and knowledge of the arrival an eventual peak. The rising pace may make one anxious, and the smashing plates (note: broken crockery is not good for the nerves), may lead to bated breath. There is a definite deliberateness to the actions in the clips: from the looped women pushing the knives off the edge of the table, to the resplendent tennis player, framed in concentration.

The video is beautifully made, all HD shots and carefully-constructed composition. AB/CD/CD, a French collaboration of Clément Dozier, Arnaud Boutin and Camille Dauteuille, met as lively youth at a Parisian art school. They have since worked their way up the hipster-charts: from Lily Allen’s Fuck You (2009) to present.

The Virgins: A Film

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First comes the kiss, then comes the next part… Both a rite of passage all on their own, though they may create the same reactions: anxiety, hesitation, discomfort, uncertainty, and a general sense of confusion and awkwardness. We’ve all had different experiences, but this list seems to ring true for most and independent filmmaker Jack Turits has surely encapsulated these emotions perfectly with his short film The Virgins.

Simple in premise, the film is composed of two characters: the guy and the girl teenager. We don’t see too much of a back story, but it’s not needed. Even with minimal dialogue, we’re aware of the film’s subject, introduced surrounding a somewhat expected prom storyline, to help get the meat of the point across, just in case we were flailing in confusion. Both characters are slightly dopey yet entirely affable—in other words, true.

Having written, edited, and directed The Virgins through his own production company Turits Film, you might call this Jack Turits’ ten minute lovechild—raw, disconcerting, and all-too-real, but also intriguing and incredibly satisfying.

Wes Anderson Makes Commercials

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Any God-Bill Murrary-fearing Wes Anderson fan will be anxiously counting down the days until Moonrise Kingdom, Anderson’s first feature since 2009, is released into our cinemas and our kitschy, ironic souls. We mark our diaries in perfect symmetry with a red pen, hovering above our desks exactly like this, just to get appropriately hyped. To briefly settle the anxious palpitations of our Wes-deprived hearts, Hyundai premiered two commercials (the first above; the second here) directed by the man himself, which premiered during the Oscars broadcast on Sunday night.

And boy, does it make us want to empty our bank accounts and buy a Hyundai. The overload of Wes-isms make us smile with nostalgia for the first time we watched The Royal Tenenbaums, the countless times we watched Rushmore on rainy weekends in high school, and even for yesterday, when we watched every Anderson slow-mo shot set to Ja Rule. Car ads are boring. That is an undisputed and given fact (except for this one). They’re all sleek exteriors and comfy interiors with exceedingly handsome drivers and fake smiles. Thank you, Wes, for the flying car in your commercial and passengers wearing helmets underwater (so very Zissou). Thank you for your signature lateral tracking between sets, symmetrical shots, your yellow coloring every scene, a dad who can’t get being a dad right, magnets falling off a fridge in an instant cascade and a cute kid happily sitting in a high cupboard.

And now those sixty seconds are over, we’re back to nervously waiting Moonrise Kingdom. You’re killing us, Wes.

A Curious Road Trip To Elsewhere

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Short films have this frustrating tendency to cram content down audiences’ throats in a fervour of five or ten minutes, often forgetting to gently coax out stories lyrically and imaginatively. They’ve only got enough budget for a ten minute film, they think, so they make it worth their while. What a mistake; what a cop out! British filmmaking duo Mathy & Fran have proudly and successfully avoided that stressful frenzy in their stripped back and curious film, ELSEWHERE.

The pair describe the film as, “Two ‘lovers on the run’ head into the middle of nowhere, armed only with strange trinkets and a silver boombox.” But it’s not as simple, or as frivolous as just that. The two lovers are deeply eccentric: not in the way you might describe Wes Andersen characters, but they legitimately don’t make sense; they are out of this world. The narrative in ELSEWHERE is pieced together in a way that’s disorientating (but still engaging) to follow—the pair pop from one idyllic landscape to the next, talking in disjointed rivers of words that leave the audience somehwat in the dark.

It’s playful in that way—there’s no shoving down throats here; you have to assemble what’s going on and discover who this strange pair really are. The aesthetic is ultra crisp (shot on a Red One), the soundtrack is delicately sparse and almost completely diegetic, and the art direction is superb: retaining a timeless, vintage look of buttoned up, sensible coats and collars; tape decks and a beaten up car.

We spoke to Mathy & Fran about ELSEWHERE and the dynamics of working as a filmmaking duo, something that most directors avoid, preferring to direct individually:

We didn’t set out to work in a partnership—it just sort of happened. We were studying film together, fell in love, and it seemed natural to start sharing ideas and directing together. The effect of living and working together means we end up totally consumed by the projects we’re involved in which can be tough, but is ultimately a luxury of being able to live and breathe what you love. We never set rules or boundaries in terms of who does what, but have developed a very instinctive and natural way of working together—in effect, we share everything. It’s all a question of trust.

The writing side of things is slightly different for us and we usually pass a script back and forth – writing in isolation to each other. With ELSEWHERE it meant we initially had two completely separate first drafts, yet they turned out to be remarkably similar.

PORTABLE: We really got some intense Submarine vibes in ELSEWHERE: from those extreme wide shots to the quirks of the lovers and their story, and even down to Cath’s red lips and Nick’s haircut. Were those parallels intentional or was it just a case of British filmmakers feeding off the same inspiration?

We loved Submarine too, although ELSEWHERE was actually conceived and written long before we ever saw it. The coincidence probably stems more from a love of similar things—the aesthetic and narrative parallels coming from the fact that both films lean towards a passion for cinema. ELSEWHERE took a lot of inspiration from road movies like Badlands as well as a lot of American indie directors like Gus Van Sant. Narratively, it all sparked from watching Nicholas Ray’s They Live By Night, and stylistically there’s a huge nod to Godard’s Pierrot Le Fou. The influences were pretty eclectic, but often deliberately transparent and we hope celebratory – such as the reference to Jeff Wall’s A Sudden Gust Of Wind.

Why did you choose to leave so many details about the characters in ELSEWHERE unsaid? It showed impressive restraint and added a whole other curious element to the film, was it difficult to contain this story in a short timeframe?

We both really favour shorts that don’t aim to tell a neat story and allow themselves to be more fragmented or open-ended. We had a lot of history for the two characters in ELSEWHERE that we chose not to include in the script. We often find ourselves leaning more towards the unspoken or unexplained, and the key importance with ELSEWHERE was that the film be emotionally and visually led.

We’ve always felt that shorts should be more like songs than stories. You get an incredible amount of freedom with short filmmaking that simply can’t exist with features, and for us it’s a really exciting medium to work in—being able to pass on an emotion, or a feeling, without necessarily having to show the whole picture.

We definitely want to make features in the future, but think it’s a mistake to see shorts simply as stepping stones—they’re a very different beast and can open up all sorts of opportunities to experiment, explore, and find out what works.

ELSEWHERE‘s script and the theatrical way the lovers are portrayed had a very Absurd feel to it, reminiscent of the great Absurd Theatre writers like Edward Albee, Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter. Did you draw inspiration from Absurdism and those writers?

We’re definitely fans of that kind of Absurd writing. We wanted ELSEWHERE to feel like the two characters were almost holding separate conversations—talking at each other rather than to each other. The challenge was in finding a way to do this that didn’t alienate them from each other, creating that sense of shorthand – the constant playing of games and idle conversation showing their closeness to each other. That kind of disconnected dialogue is definitely a bit Pinter inspired, but we’re also huge fans of Hal Hartley and the way that he constructs dialogue was another massive influence.

A Curious Road Trip To Elsewhere

Posted on by

Short films have this frustrating tendency to cram content down audiences’ throats in a fervour of five or ten minutes, often forgetting to gently coax out stories lyrically and imaginatively. They’ve only got enough budget for a ten minute film, they think, so they make it worth their while. What a mistake; what a cop out! British filmmaking duo Mathy & Fran have proudly and successfully avoided that stressful frenzy in their stripped back and curious film, ELSEWHERE.

The pair describe the film as, “Two ‘lovers on the run’ head into the middle of nowhere, armed only with strange trinkets and a silver boombox.” But it’s not as simple, or as frivolous as just that. The two lovers are deeply eccentric: not in the way you might describe Wes Andersen characters, but they legitimately don’t make sense; they are out of this world. The narrative in ELSEWHERE is pieced together in a way that’s disorientating (but still engaging) to follow—the pair pop from one idyllic landscape to the next, talking in disjointed rivers of words that leave the audience somehwat in the dark.

It’s playful in that way—there’s no shoving down throats here; you have to assemble what’s going on and discover who this strange pair really are. The aesthetic is ultra crisp (shot on a Red One), the soundtrack is delicately sparse and almost completely diegetic, and the art direction is superb: retaining a timeless, vintage look of buttoned up, sensible coats and collars; tape decks and a beaten up car.

We spoke to Mathy & Fran about ELSEWHERE and the dynamics of working as a filmmaking duo, something that most directors avoid, preferring to direct individually:

We didn’t set out to work in a partnership—it just sort of happened. We were studying film together, fell in love, and it seemed natural to start sharing ideas and directing together. The effect of living and working together means we end up totally consumed by the projects we’re involved in which can be tough, but is ultimately a luxury of being able to live and breathe what you love. We never set rules or boundaries in terms of who does what, but have developed a very instinctive and natural way of working together—in effect, we share everything. It’s all a question of trust.

The writing side of things is slightly different for us and we usually pass a script back and forth – writing in isolation to each other. With ELSEWHERE it meant we initially had two completely separate first drafts, yet they turned out to be remarkably similar.

PORTABLE: We really got some intense Submarine vibes in ELSEWHERE: from those extreme wide shots to the quirks of the lovers and their story, and even down to Cath’s red lips and Nick’s haircut. Were those parallels intentional or was it just a case of British filmmakers feeding off the same inspiration?

We loved Submarine too, although ELSEWHERE was actually conceived and written long before we ever saw it. The coincidence probably stems more from a love of similar things—the aesthetic and narrative parallels coming from the fact that both films lean towards a passion for cinema. ELSEWHERE took a lot of inspiration from road movies like Badlands as well as a lot of American indie directors like Gus Van Sant. Narratively, it all sparked from watching Nicholas Ray’s They Live By Night, and stylistically there’s a huge nod to Godard’s Pierrot Le Fou. The influences were pretty eclectic, but often deliberately transparent and we hope celebratory – such as the reference to Jeff Wall’s A Sudden Gust Of Wind.

Why did you choose to leave so many details about the characters in ELSEWHERE unsaid? It showed impressive restraint and added a whole other curious element to the film, was it difficult to contain this story in a short timeframe?

We both really favour shorts that don’t aim to tell a neat story and allow themselves to be more fragmented or open-ended. We had a lot of history for the two characters in ELSEWHERE that we chose not to include in the script. We often find ourselves leaning more towards the unspoken or unexplained, and the key importance with ELSEWHERE was that the film be emotionally and visually led.

We’ve always felt that shorts should be more like songs than stories. You get an incredible amount of freedom with short filmmaking that simply can’t exist with features, and for us it’s a really exciting medium to work in—being able to pass on an emotion, or a feeling, without necessarily having to show the whole picture.

We definitely want to make features in the future, but think it’s a mistake to see shorts simply as stepping stones—they’re a very different beast and can open up all sorts of opportunities to experiment, explore, and find out what works.

ELSEWHERE‘s script and the theatrical way the lovers are portrayed had a very Absurd feel to it, reminiscent of the great Absurd Theatre writers like Edward Albee, Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter. Did you draw inspiration from Absurdism and those writers?

We’re definitely fans of that kind of Absurd writing. We wanted ELSEWHERE to feel like the two characters were almost holding separate conversations—talking at each other rather than to each other. The challenge was in finding a way to do this that didn’t alienate them from each other, creating that sense of shorthand – the constant playing of games and idle conversation showing their closeness to each other. That kind of disconnected dialogue is definitely a bit Pinter inspired, but we’re also huge fans of Hal Hartley and the way that he constructs dialogue was another massive influence.

A Film to Move You: Moving Takahashi

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Sift through Vimeo and you’ll be assaulted with that blindingly crisp image —speckled by shallow depth of field bokeh—offered by DSLR captured films from the doe eyed and digitally bred young filmmakers of today. Without getting into the whole exhausting DSLR debate that plagues film nerds’ egos constantly, I’ll go ahead and say that nothing quite undoes me like a film shot beautifully on film. It’s baffling that just a slightly grainy texture, coupled with those uniquely warm tones can be so fundamentally—yet somehow vaguely, mystifyingly—nostalgic; it’s astounding how the way the color blue in a fluorescent bathroom is captured (bereft of digital hostility) can be so stirring, so poignant.

Moving Takahashi, quintessentially about a girl wanting to die and a removalist not letting her, was filmed on Kodak 35mm and absolutely shattered me because it ticked every box: it’s subtle but unexpectedly affecting; its script is perfect and every shot is gorgeous. But perhaps most (simply) enchanting of all is the light in that house, the light.

Takahashi gathers considerable momentum for a short: in the space of eleven minutes we see major plot movements and fully formed, developed characters. How often can you watch a short film and feel you understand a character deeper than their highlighted quirk, or beyond the immediate event at hand? It’s in the details that director Josh Soskin gets it right: superb, sparse art direction and subtleties with the soundtrack (Jacques Brel on vinyl ringing throughout an empty house—incredible), a minimal, but extremely well executed script; that hint of humour to relieve a dark subject matter; excellent performances by Boyd Hollbrook and Kristin Malko; realistic characters and their realistic woes.

Impressively, this is only Josh Soskin’s second short fictional film to date and his first dappling in 35mm. We spoke to Josh and asked him about his experiences with such a fickle and precious medium for filmmakers, and about creating that imperfectly perfect look on film:

We spent so much time trying to get that look, adding in grain filters, crushing and coloring until it looks like film—it’s like, why not just shoot on film? For me, this being the first film I shot on 35 there were certainly some challenges. Especially being a digital kid, accustomed to endless takes, etc, I had to get used to this notion of having to conserve your takes. That was probably the toughest thing. For the circular dolly living room scene we shot through our entire stock for the day in two hours! My producers were freaking out, making last minute runs to Kodak on a Sunday. In retrospect it was kind of funny but at the time that added stress sucked. I did also miss just that immediacy of a small DSLR like camera, just being able to pop things off. I come from a doc[umentary] background and I love to get that kind of stuff, the stolen moments.

PORTABLE: Takahashi deals with suicide, a topic that’s always difficult to approach in a film. What was it like navigating such a delicate subject and what compelled you to go there?

Suicide is like one of those things people discourage you from dealing with as a young filmmaker. But for this it was right. I actually imposed that onto the story because I really wanted to deal with a ticking time bomb scenario, to have this built in tension surrounding their relationship. But balancing the gravity of suicide with the playfulness of their escape was definitely a challenge—I had one of my closest friends kill himself when I was in college. It was completely unexpected and we were all a little unaware of where he was at mentally. I always have sort of kept this question in the back of my mind: could I have said something that would have changed his mind? So I was also fascinated with the ‘What ifs’, the ability to change somebody’s life I guess.

Lately there seems to be this kind of clichéd short film ‘genre’-so to speak– there’s so many funny, quirky, but kind of fleeting short films being made. Takahashi deviates from that in so many ways, what draws you to short films and the way their stories are told?

I’m not sure if we, as filmmakers, stop and really think about it enough, or if we just march in a directional, almost blind way into shorts because that’s what the set, hierarchical film industry path says to do: you know, go to film school, make a short, then a feature, etc. In my case, Takahashi was born from wanting to try and make something with my good friend Patrick James (the writer) and see how our two styles would mesh. He came to me with this idea, this simple image of a poor mover and a rich girl in the suburbs and we just took it from there. We were a bit rushed to try and get something done before the festival deadlines so we moved really fast. We wrote the story in like three days and had it funded off Kickstarter within 10 days! It was insane…I think the short flim is a great medium, especially as the collective societal attention span continues to shrink, we as filmmakers will have to get better at telling stories in shorter and more compelling ways.

Moving on from Moving Takahashi, Josh’s next project will be less about stealing hearts and more about stealing drugs: in the works this year is his first feature, which he summed up as being: “A period piece about drug smugglers in the seventies in California, and I’m dying to make it.”

We can’t wait.

A Film to Move You: Moving Takahashi

Posted on by

Sift through Vimeo and you’ll be assaulted with that blindingly crisp image —speckled by shallow depth of field bokeh—offered by DSLR captured films from the doe eyed and digitally bred young filmmakers of today. Without getting into the whole exhausting DSLR debate that plagues film nerds’ egos constantly, I’ll go ahead and say that nothing quite undoes me like a film shot beautifully on film. It’s baffling that just a slightly grainy texture, coupled with those uniquely warm tones can be so fundamentally—yet somehow vaguely, mystifyingly—nostalgic; it’s astounding how the way the color blue in a fluorescent bathroom is captured (bereft of digital hostility) can be so stirring, so poignant.

Moving Takahashi, quintessentially about a girl wanting to die and a removalist not letting her, was filmed on Kodak 35mm and absolutely shattered me because it ticked every box: it’s subtle but unexpectedly affecting; its script is perfect and every shot is gorgeous. But perhaps most (simply) enchanting of all is the light in that house, the light.

Takahashi gathers considerable momentum for a short: in the space of eleven minutes we see major plot movements and fully formed, developed characters. How often can you watch a short film and feel you understand a character deeper than their highlighted quirk, or beyond the immediate event at hand? It’s in the details that director Josh Soskin gets it right: superb, sparse art direction and subtleties with the soundtrack (Jacques Brel on vinyl ringing throughout an empty house—incredible), a minimal, but extremely well executed script; that hint of humour to relieve a dark subject matter; excellent performances by Boyd Hollbrook and Kristin Malko; realistic characters and their realistic woes.

Impressively, this is only Josh Soskin’s second short fictional film to date and his first dappling in 35mm. We spoke to Josh and asked him about his experiences with such a fickle and precious medium for filmmakers, and about creating that imperfectly perfect look on film:

We spent so much time trying to get that look, adding in grain filters, crushing and coloring until it looks like film—it’s like, why not just shoot on film? For me, this being the first film I shot on 35 there were certainly some challenges. Especially being a digital kid, accustomed to endless takes, etc, I had to get used to this notion of having to conserve your takes. That was probably the toughest thing. For the circular dolly living room scene we shot through our entire stock for the day in two hours! My producers were freaking out, making last minute runs to Kodak on a Sunday. In retrospect it was kind of funny but at the time that added stress sucked. I did also miss just that immediacy of a small DSLR like camera, just being able to pop things off. I come from a doc[umentary] background and I love to get that kind of stuff, the stolen moments.

PORTABLE: Takahashi deals with suicide, a topic that’s always difficult to approach in a film. What was it like navigating such a delicate subject and what compelled you to go there?

Suicide is like one of those things people discourage you from dealing with as a young filmmaker. But for this it was right. I actually imposed that onto the story because I really wanted to deal with a ticking time bomb scenario, to have this built in tension surrounding their relationship. But balancing the gravity of suicide with the playfulness of their escape was definitely a challenge—I had one of my closest friends kill himself when I was in college. It was completely unexpected and we were all a little unaware of where he was at mentally. I always have sort of kept this question in the back of my mind: could I have said something that would have changed his mind? So I was also fascinated with the ‘What ifs’, the ability to change somebody’s life I guess.

Lately there seems to be this kind of clichéd short film ‘genre’-so to speak– there’s so many funny, quirky, but kind of fleeting short films being made. Takahashi deviates from that in so many ways, what draws you to short films and the way their stories are told?

I’m not sure if we, as filmmakers, stop and really think about it enough, or if we just march in a directional, almost blind way into shorts because that’s what the set, hierarchical film industry path says to do: you know, go to film school, make a short, then a feature, etc. In my case, Takahashi was born from wanting to try and make something with my good friend Patrick James (the writer) and see how our two styles would mesh. He came to me with this idea, this simple image of a poor mover and a rich girl in the suburbs and we just took it from there. We were a bit rushed to try and get something done before the festival deadlines so we moved really fast. We wrote the story in like three days and had it funded off Kickstarter within 10 days! It was insane…I think the short flim is a great medium, especially as the collective societal attention span continues to shrink, we as filmmakers will have to get better at telling stories in shorter and more compelling ways.

Moving on from Moving Takahashi, Josh’s next project will be less about stealing hearts and more about stealing drugs: in the works this year is his first feature, which he summed up as being: “A period piece about drug smugglers in the seventies in California, and I’m dying to make it.”

We can’t wait.