SHORT FILMS the Blessing and Curse of All Creative People Is the “So, I Got This Awesome Idea” Conundrum
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SHORT FILMS The blessing and curse of all creative people is the “so, I got this awesome idea” conundrum. STASH MEDIA INC. Editor: StePheN PriCE For most it begins with an urgent desire to make the world a cooler, smarter or funnier place. Publisher: GREG ROBINS The problem arrives when this rush of genius slams head first into the lumpen reality of Managing editor: HEATHER GRIEVE producing something new and meaningful then collapses in a dazed heap. Associate publisher: MARILEE BOITSON Associate editor: ABBEY KERR Account manager: APRIL HARVEY For a few exceptional creators, whether they design cars, meals, songs, houses, hand bags, Business development: wine labels or moving images, that awesome idea locks itself around their neck and does PaUliNE ThomPsoN Administration: STEFANIE POLSINELLI more than whisper seductively about freedom, glory or fulfillment. It pulls them out of their Preview editor: creative comfort zone and, I’ll argue, just as importantly, demands they plow up the fallow left HEATHER GRIEVE Technical guidance: IAN HASKIN hemisphere of their brain and shovel around mundane project details like budget, schedule, staffing and administration. GET YOUR INSPIRATION DELIVERED MONTHLY. This trek to the dark “corporate” side is the undoing of many creative ventures but talent SHORT who brave their projects through this valley of death (carpeted solely with meddling, suit-clad Every issue of Stash DVD magazine is packed with outstanding animation and VFX for design and advertising. cubicle-dwellers) emerge more focused, more mature and better prepared for their next stab at FILMS cooler/smarter/funnier. Subscribe now: WWW.STASHMEDIA.TV SHORT FILMS 1 showcases this kind of filmmaker and 30 of their ideas. Intriguing, hilarious, ISSN 1712-5928 weird, thoughtful ideas made all the more awesome by the series of headaches, excuses, glitches, hurdles, burning hoops and absolute impossibilities that once stood in their way. Subscrptions: www.stashmedia.tv. Submissions: www.stashmedia.tv/submit. Stash Media Inc. 35 McCaul Street Suite 305A Toronto, ON M5T 1V7 Canada Stephen Price Legal things: Stash Magazine and Stash DVD Editor are published 12 times per year by Stash Media Inc. All rights reserved and contents copyright New York, July 2009 Stash Media Inc. No part of this booklet nor the Stash DVD may be copied without express [email protected] written permission from the publisher. Printed in Canada. stash 46.01 “POSTMAN RETURNS” alive through animation and Short film sound design – that’s the best thing about working on your own short films, no one can make Director: you compromise your vision. The MISCHA ROZEMA biggest challenges we (myself Production: and Ivor Goldberg, head of 3D) POSTPANIC had on this production was how Animation: to execute some of the physics POSTPANIC of the animations, in particular www.postpanic.net with scenes displaying insane movements of objects, but it was Stash 19 led off with a promotional still all fun and that’s the driving short from Amsterdam studio force behind making this series PostPanic called “Postman”. of films.” It was shockingly original and very entertaining and has since Watch Behind the Scenes on garnered wide acclaim. And now, the DVD two years later, the Postman For PostPanic returns in what the studio promises Writer/director: Mischa Rozema will be an ongoing series of films. Design: Mischa Rozema Director Mischa Rozema: Animation: Ivor Goldberg “Basically the Postman films Producer: Annejes van Liempd become a kind of instructional EPs: Ania Markham, Jules Tervoort series of tales on how to destroy For Massive Music the world or create panic. It’s not Sound design: Guy Amitai, about destruction, it’s the way Lawrence Horne (Kaiser Sound you destroy/panic. It’s all about Studios) attitude. I also love the fact that Music license/production: it’s this PostPanic world where Lodewijk Pöttker anything is possible – Postman 1 had edible nuclear clouds and Toolkit Postman 2 also has some really 3ds Max, After Effects, Illustrator, surreal elements. It’s also always Photoshop such a buzz to see how things you sketch in a notebook come stash 16.29 stash 20.29 “ALIVE IN JOBURG” “TALE OF HOW” Short film Short film Production: Director: SPY FILMS JANNES HENDRIKZ Director: Production/animation: NEILL BLOMKAMP THE BLACK HEART GANG VFX: www.blackginger.tv RATEL Working after hours and weekends www.ratel.ca for nine months with no budget, Alive in Joburg is director Neill a collective of friends based in Blomkamp’s breakout short and Cape Town South Africa called the basis for his feature film debut The Blackheart Gang completed District 9 released in 2009. this rich, surreal and operatic mini- masterpiece about, among other Although the setting is bleak and things, an insane dodo-eating the underlying themes serious, island named Otto and a white Blomkamp – who was born in mouse named Eddy the Engineer. South Africa – insists the work is EP: Carlo Trulli The group cites an appropriately a tongue-in-cheek experiment in VFX: Neill Blomkamp eclectic range of influences presenting western science fiction Producer: Simon Hansen, including Indonesian art, Prokofiev, in a non-western setting, “It’s a Sharlto Copley Tim Burton, Philip Glass, Lewis strange piece, and I suspect that Production/location manager: Carrol and fantasy artist Patric at first, people might not know how For The Blackheart Gang Jason Stapleton, Richard Clark, Jason Cope Woodraffe. to react to it. But, that tends to be Concept: Markus Smit, Pieter Mentz, Brian Goodwin Sound recording: S’bo Nyembe how it is with experimentation.” Ree Treweek Voices: Raymond Connel, Tim Bull, Sound design: Francois Lafleur CD: Jannes Hendrikz Inge Beckmann, Noel Labridy The South African shoot (captured “Harmonic Code” track: Story: Markus Smit Toolkit throughout 2005 in between Q Department Character design/illustration: XSI, After Effects, Photoshop paying gigs and another personal Score: Clinton Shorter Ree Treweek project called Tempbot) was Alien prosthetics: Sarah Bergeest Compositing/2D animation: financed by Toronto’s Spy Motion capture: Mainframe Inc. Jannes Hendrikz Films with all VFX completed by Toolkit Music/sound design: Markus Smit Blomkamp through his VFX studio LightWave, After Effects, boujou, Lead 3D animator: Justin Baker RATEL. Photoshop 3D team: Lyndon Daniels, Stanley Segal, Alexander Gilfillian, stash 51.28 stash 16.18 “DIX” SUNDANCE CHANNEL Short film 7:08 Short films x 3 Director: Agency: BIF JWT, NY Production: Director: THE MILL JULIAN GREY AUTOUR DE MINUIT Animation: ARCADI HEAD GEAR ANIMATION CANAL+ www.headgearanimation.com CNC Three films from Toronto’s Head Animation/VFX: Gear Animation for a series THE MILL commissioned by The Sundance www.the-mill.com Channel to run as interstitials Hidden within the walls of The and based on the work of United Mill in London lurks a directing States Poet Laureate Billy Collins. team known as bif. It comprises Director Julian Grey says he Fabrice Le Nezet, Francois Roisin jumped at the chance to create and Jules Janaud, all animation visuals to complement Collins’ graduates of the Supinfocom wry humor, rejection of formal class of 2005, also responsible poetic convention and eye for the for the spectacularly original 2006 minutiae of everyday life. film “Raymond” – the first in the on-going series of shorts created Read more about this project at in-house from The Mill. www.stashmedia.tv/16_18. The directors reveal the major challenge with this new film was, “Chopping up our actor. Some For Head Gear Animation “Some Days” “Forgetfulness” shots are 2D special effects EP: Sue Riedl Animators: Julian Grey, Compositors: Philippe Blanchard, (Shake), while some others needed For The Mill For Autour De Minuit Drew Lightfoot Jeff Jordan “Budapest” a 3D model animated on top of the Director: bif Producer: Nicolas Schmerkin Compositors: Philippe Blanchard, Music/sound: Tom Third Animators: Julian Grey, actor and then cut, revealing the Producer: Stephen Venning Isaac King Toolkit Philippe Blanchard, Isaac King Toolkit flesh.” Schedule: Music/sound: Kyle Sim XSI, Maya, Shake, Final Cut four months. Compositors: Julian Grey, After Effects, Photoshop, Nikon Philippe Blanchard D2H, Panasonic 24P camcorder stash 11.29 stash 19 BONUS FILM “CITY PARADISE” Short film “DYNAMO” Student film Commissioner: CHANNEL 4 TELEVISION Director: Director: FABRICE LE NEZET GAELLE DENIS School: Production/animation/VFX: SUPINFOCOM PASSION PICTURES www.passion-pictures.com Animation: For Passion Pictures FABRICE LE NEZET Post: Producer: Erika Forzy MATHIEU GOUTTE RUSHES EP: Andrew Ruhemann BENJAMIN MOUSQUET www.rushes.co.uk DOP: Sarah Bartles Smith Art director: Sarah Frere The ancient city of Valenciennes in Director Gaëlle Denis follows up Lighting/textures: northern France, once celebrated her 2003 BAFTA award-winning Antoine Moulineau for commodities like steel and lace, first film Fish Never Sleep with Models/animation: has recently become the source this charming and surreal effort Nicklas Andersson for a different kind of export: commissioned by Channel 4 Matte painting: David Lea exceptional animation talent. television as part of the Artist in VFX supers: Neil Riley, Chris Knott Supinfocom, the animation school Residence (AIR) scheme. Produced Compositing: Niamh Lines, Ian established in 1988 by the local through London’s Passion Pictures, Sargent, Johnny Still, Cassiano Chamber of Commerce and the short has been recognized in Prado, Ian Murphy, Paul Cheshire Industry, consistently produces