Two short films for this week’s FAM; something to tide you over in preparation for the three day weekend here in the States. First up is Matter Fisher by David Prosser, the strange tale of a fisherman who finds an extremely magnetic piece of…something. Prosser’s style is dark and minimalist, lending everything a ghostly vibe. It’s a world so lonely, one has the distinct impression that the fisherman could very well be the only human being in existence.
Next is The Saga of Biôrn by the army of Benjamin J. Kousholt, Daniel D. Christensen, Mads Lundgaard Christensen, Jesper A. Jensen, Jonas K. Doctor, Steffen Lyhne, Pernille Ørum-Nielsen, Frederik Bjerre-Poulsen, Jonas Georgakakis. It tells the story of the titular Biôrn, a viking warrior whose only wish is to die in battle, so that he may enter Valhöll. This one has none of the brooding of Matter Fisher, going for a much more comedic tone. The end of Biôrn’s quest is particularly satisfying.
And there you have it, a couple of choice morsels for another Friday. Good luck on the rest of your afternoon.
I suspect that when many Americans think of The Future, it looks like something envisioned by Disney; all moving sidewalks, flying cars, and abodes akin to The Monsanto House of the Future. “Magic Highway USA” doesn’t stray too far from these established tropes. There are still the flying cars and moving sidewalks but there are also truly fantastical items like giant machines that build bridges into the thin air underneath them out of quick drying concrete mixtures or machines the melt tunnels into mountains using The Power of the Atom. On the other hand, it also vaguely hints at devices very much like modern GPS units. And unsurprisingly, considering the mindset at the time, there are highways everywhere, vast networks of roadways crisscrossing the globe, enabling you and your family to drive through the Taj Mahal or up the Great Sphinx’s nose. A spiderweb of automotive activity, always on the move, never stopping. Welcome to The Future.
Happy Friday the 13th! A lucky day for us, to be sure– in addition to Ross’s regular installment of the FAM, Coilhouse is proud to present NERVOUS96, a new, suspenseful, next-to-silent retro sci-fi short by director Bill Domonkos.
Inspired by original musical seance recordings by longtime ‘Haus favorite Jill Tracy, and the deliciously spooky violin of Paul Mercer, Domonkos has taken vintage footage and repurposed it to present the tale of a frantic, lonely woman, increasingly overwhelmed by debt and uncertainty in a world where technology has become increasingly invasive, even menacing. His “complex chiaroscuro style marks a marriage between silent-era special effects master George Méliès and the digital age.”
“Single white female. Lonely, Seeking soul mate. Humanoid preferred…”
From the NERVOUS96 press release:
Known for his distinctive craft of manipulated archival footage combined with 2D and 3D computer animation, special effects, and photography, Jill Tracy fans best know Bay Area filmmaker Bill Domonkos for the multiple award-winning “The Fine Art of Poisoning,” and his collection of acclaimed videos for legendary masked band The Residents.
“The Fine Art of Poisoning,” (set to Jill Tracy’s seminal song) has become a cult favorite, garnering praise from Clive Barker, Guy Maddin, writer Warren Ellis, and well-over 100,000 views on YouTube, and a recent screening at London’s famed National Gallery.
Domonkos was completely inspired by pianist Jill Tracy and violinist Paul Mercer’s “Musical Séance,” a poignant live project that employs the duo’s astonishing channeled improvisations. Domonkos meticulously crafted excerpts from actual séance recordings to create the emotional voice of the “NERVOUS96” character.
(Click those arrows on the right to watch it full screen.) The musical score for NERVOUS96 is also available for download on Bandcamp. Congratulations to Domonkos/Tracy/Mercer on this sharp and toothsome indie triumph.
Danger Beach’s “Apache” is a beautiful instrumental with a simply fantastic animated video, directed by Ned Wenlock, featuring a guitar wielding Native American — accompanied by a bison and a Sasquatch, also equipped with guitars — playing the melody through a constantly spiraling and shifting landscape. It’s really, very well done and Mr. Wenlock has taken the time to explain how he did the whole thing here, for those technically minded people who may be interested. I’ve watched this three or four times since first finding it and it gets better every time.
Woodward released this piece, “Thought of You” (animated to a song by The Weepies) a few months ago, after working closely with a choreographer and dancers to achieve a deep level of subtlety and humanity. The short was rejected from Sundance, but has since gained effusive praise and hundreds of thousands of views on Vimeo and Youtube.
If anyone is reminded of Michel Gagné‘s work (that same fluidity and emotive dexterity) it’s no coincidence. Woodward states: “[Gagné] was my mentor and continues to be my friend and my inspiration. I give him all the credit in the world for what I’ve learned.”
Learn more about Woodward’s non-commercial body of work at Conte Animated.
Over in a SomethingAwful forums titled 3D Emoticons Redux – Now With NEWTONIAN Physics!, SchmuckFeatures writes, “I’m sure everyone’s familiar with this image:”
“My version of it turned into… this.”
Music: “Vessels” by Philip Glass, from Koyaanisqatsi. Via Kyle McElroy.
Everything’s majestic +1 when you throw some Philip Glass at it, eh?
After more than a decade, ruddily engorged by countless commercial and artistic coups d’états, the Kansas City-based design and filmmaking collective known as MK12 still excels at chewing bubblegum and kicking ass and making the baby Jebus cry. PROOF:
FITC is a design and technology events company that celebrated their 10th annual flagship event in Toronto just last week. MK12 produced this brief-but-brutal animated title film to mark the occasion. Indelibly. In your shuddering brainmeats. For all eternity. Nnnngh.
Pipe dream of the day: MK12 makes a full-length movie in cahoots with Al Columbia.
There’s something misleading about the title Hambuster. Vaguely obscene, it feels like it should be referring to something far more profane than a film about killer hamburgers. And yet, that is exactly what we’re talking about here: man-eating, sentient fast food. Directed by the quintet of Paul Alexandre, Maxime Cazaux, Dara Cazamea, Romain Delaunay, and Bruno Ortolland, Hambuster tells the story of what happens when our food rebels against us.
The animation here is fantastic, and the directors wear their influences on their sleeves, even going so far as to put some great, B-movie homages in the credits. The story is simple enough, one could almost say well-worn, but the team is talented and well versed enough in the tropes of over-the-top horror/comedy to do it justice. The diner scene, in particular, is a highlight, featuring a wonderful attention to facial expression and an absurd amount of viscous, red fluid. At the very least, it holds the distinction of being one of the few films featuring a protagonist in the possession of multiple, swaying chins.
A still from the 1923 Ballet Russes’ production of Les Noces.
Les Noces, known as Svadebka in Russian, was a production ten years in the making. Originally commissioning the score from Igor Stravinsky in 1913, Sergei Diaghilev, creator and leader of the Ballets Russes, intended the ballet to be choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky. The task was later handed to his capable and innovative sister, Bronislava, who was inspired by Cubism, Constructivists, and the relationship between body and machine as exemplified in the emerging Soviet Russia. More concerned with the dynamic quality of movement rather than the traditional posturing and composition of ballet, Nijinska’s choreography was novel and intensely physical.
With its premiere in 1923, Les Noces acted as a sacred drama that created a liturgy out of a wedding while exploring brutal peasant values through a modernist lens. The dancers, in their somber, simple costumes designed by Natalia Goncharova, were to resemble Byzantine saints leaving little room for expression or romance as they stabbed and spliced the air and stage with their rigid hands and feet. The result was one of the most enduring and influential ballets of the 20th century, still performed today.
Conductor Leonard Bernstein spoke of Stravinsky’s opening “cruel chord, made crueler with the lack of preparation,” and the unsettling score stays with you long after the final note has been sung. Influenced by the ‘folk orchestras’ of peasant weddings, Stravinsky employed only four pianos and soloist singers for his musical score, a far cry from the sweeping ensembles found in his compositions The Firebird, Petroushka and Le sacre du printemps. Now, New Yorkers and visitors to the famously noisy metropolis can get lost in the soundscape of Stravinsky as appropriated by the artist, Arturo Herrera.
On view at the Americas Society until April 30th, Herrera’s Les Noces (The Wedding) is an abstract homage to the classic ballet in the form of jumpy film projections, collage and sculpture. Take the time to visit the modest exhibit if only to experience the rattling pianos and piercing operatic vocals of the Stravinsky recording, haunting as any eulogy, juxtaposed against Herrera’s film of a world as bleak as Nijinska’s peasant girls all too aware of their fates.
The gallery at the Americas Society is located at 680 Park Avenue, NYC and is open Wednesday through Saturday, 12-6 p.m.
Click here for more information on the exhibit. For further reading on Les Noces, visit Ballet UK.
I cannot definitively say that, as the title suggests, everything will be ok. It is all together possible and, perhaps, probable — depending on your bent — that everything will not be ok. That’s not what this is about. No, this post is about Everything Will Be Ok, Don Hertzfeldt’s award-winning short, which celebrated its 5th Anniversary last month. The first of a planned trilogy (the last of which is set to be released this year), Everything Will Be Ok follows the story of a man named, simply, Bill. We see Bill awkwardly greet a man he recognizes on the street, Bill at home, Bill spending time with his ex-girlfriend, Bill having a dream about a giant fish head, eating away at his skull. Its a story that concerns itself mostly with pseudo-existential shoe-gazing, filtered through the twisted mind of the man who brought us Rejected, and it is wonderful.
