An animation by Donna Kendrigan based on a Japanese folktale. A magic box from an island under the sea!
Monthly Archives: January 2011
Constable Witch – Animation by the Brothers McLeod
An episode of Sticks by the Brothers McLeod for BBC Comedy.
Live Egypt News From Al Jazeera Network
The best coverage of the uprising in Egypt is from the Al Jazeera news network which is heavily censored in the U.S. by media corporations like the cable and satellite providers.
You can follow the events with a live updating news page and a live 24-hour video feed.
Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot
Filmmaker Jon Behrens’ Psychotronic 16 blog has posted an episode of a 1967 Japanese television show called Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot. The show was based on a popular manga series. It’s another example of that fantastic toy-like Japanese approach to science fiction and adventure that kids of the sixties and seventies were so familiar with.
Dreams That Money Can Buy – 1947 Underground Feature Film by Hans Richter
Inspired by a Hans Richter film posted by Dangerous Minds, I went looking for more. I found this extraordinary gem, Dreams that Money Can Buy, which is a low-budget feature film produced and directed by Richter with some of his incredible friends in 1947. They shot the film in a New York loft. It’s essentially an underground experimental film about a guy who gets an apartment and worries about how to pay the rent. When he discovers that he has the power to see into his mind through the reflection of his eye, he seizes upon an idea to create a business selling dreams to people who are unhappy with their lives. So of course the film features seven surrealist dream sequences!
Brilliant! Some of the people involved with this fantastic film were Max Ernst, Paul Bowles, Marcel Duchamp, Alexander Calder, John Cage, Fernand Leger, and Man Ray.
You can watch the film in its 8 YouTube parts right here or you can go download it from Archive.org.
Part 2
Parts 3 – 8 after the jump!
Ghosts Before Breakfast – Surrealist Short by Hans Richter
Richard Metzger at Dangerous Minds posted about this 1927 film by Hans Richter. Considered one of the first examples of surrealist film, it’s a daydream that uses stop-motion animation to make people and objects do totally irrational and impossible things. Richter was a part of the Dada movement in art which rebelled against ordinary life and assumptions, attempting to expose the meaninglessness behind modern life. Out of Dada came the Surrealist movement. The music for this version is from a new score by Nikolai von Sallwitz.
Thank you Mr. Metzger and Dangerous Minds!
Artie Knapp Children’s Book Announcement and Online Tales
Artie Knapp writes marvelous, cheerful and gently humorous tales for children. He’s been offering his stories to this site for years and I always look forward to a new one. Knapp’s latest accomplishment is an illustrated book of stories published by Mighty Book, Inc. and illustrated by Mike Motz. The stories included were previously published by Detroit Free Press/Yak’s Corner. It will be available soon and I’ll post an update when it hits the shelves!
In addition to the upcoming print collection, Knapp has begun offering his children’s stories through Mighty Book’s web site. His recent story, Stuttering Stan Takes a Stand, is available as an animated read-aloud/read-along that is a perfect way to introduce your kids to the Artie Knapp story universe. I am proud to say that I produced the audio and narration for the read-along and I think Mighty Book has done a wonderful job creating an interface for children.
It has also won some recent awards, including the Speech Woman’s Speech-Language Pathology Site of the Month Award for January 2011 and the Stop, Think, & Speak Award, which was a student nominated award from Penn State University.
You can also buy Stuttering Stan Takes a Stand from Amazon.
Mighty Book will soon publish more Knapp stories, including The Wasp and the Canary, The Hummingbird Who Chewed Bubblegum, and There’s a Crocodile in Our Pickle Jar, as fully illustrated Flash-animated books.
The Thomas Beale Cipher
This excellent short film was made by Andrew S. Allen, utilizing a form of rotoscoping that creates a flat paper cutout look. The story follows the strange and suspenseful activities of a Professor White who sets out to decode one of the famous Thomas Beale ciphers which supposedly reveals the location of an enormous stash of gold that has remained a secret since 1820.
The director is also a founding member of the Short of the Week web site which has more information about the film.
There’s screening and press information at ThomasBealeCipher.com.
Paul Starr – 1964 Science Fiction Puppet Series
Humorous, cheesy and somewhat difficult to sit through! It’s got robots that are Dalek imitations, Gerry Anderson-style figures, vehicles and headquarters! This is the 1964 pilot episode for a puppet science fiction TV show that never aired. Paul Starr featured Ed Bishop, the actor who later played Commander Straker in the classic 70s UFO series, in the lead role. The show was created by Roberta Leigh who had already produced Space Patrol. In this episode, atomic power plants on Mars begin to explode and Paul Starr must investigate a threat to take over the red planet.
Know No Truth – A Film About a Painter by Joe Martino
This beautiful film by Joe Martino features painter Landon Richmond working and talking about his perspective on the pursuit of one’s art and expression. It’s a very direct and moving film. I agree with every word that comes out of the painter’s mouth. And I like the way he says it without a trace of pretension or irony. He’s interested in facing the darkness in his art and he recommends this fearless approach as a general principal. You have to be able to look directly at anything. Richmond also acknowledges the place that chaos occupies in his work – the willingness to not necessarily understand where it is that you are going but to go nonetheless. I really enjoyed hearing this painter’s words today and will keep them in mind for quite some time.
You can see lots of Landon Richmond’s paintings and a web comic at KnowNoTruth.com.
Maybe One Day Everything Will be Beautiful – by Landon Richmond
Road to the Stars – 1957 Soviet Space Vision with Stunning Special Effects
Excerpt 1 – First Men in Space:
The film is in Russian but you absolutely do not need to know Russian to enjoy it! Unfortunately, I can’t find the entire film, only these three excerpts.
Pavel Klushantsev’s 1957 film, Road to the Stars, features astoundingly realistic special effects that were an inspiration and obvious blueprint for Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey ten years later. The film is an extended form of science education, building upon existing 1950s technology to predict space exploration of the future. The sequences with astronauts in zero gravity are incredibly realistic. The second excerpt from the film features the construction of and life aboard a space station in earth orbit that is not only convincing but also beautiful. There are several scenes with space station dwellers using videophones that anticipate the famous Kubrick videophone scene.
Excerpt 2 – Space Station:
Excerpt 3 – Moon Landing:
Encounter – 16mm Stop-Motion Film
Professional feature film animator Joel Fletcher made this 16mm stop-motion film in 1982. Since then he’s worked on a ton of films including The Nightmare Before Christmas and King Kong.
The Art of Drowning – Poem by Billy Collins
Diego Maclean animated this film which is narrated by the poet Billy Collins.
Not Every Time – DSLR Film from Yemen
This is a preview for a television show from Yemen. It’s all shot on a Canon 7D digital SLR camera by Aimen Kasem who functioned as the show’s cinematographer. The show is directed by Sameer Al-Afeef. People are making very beautiful things with these DSLR cameras. I’ve been using one recently for my own films and appreciate the flexibility and quality that they offer. The post production work can be very challenging but the end results are often gorgeous. I like the looks of this dramatic show from Yemen. The preview stands on its own as a short film. With such high-quality equipment and editing tools available for a modest investment, it is becoming increasingly possible to see how people in different cultures approach and think about color. The fine manipulation of color in digital film is now available to any filmmaker and has become just as much a personal expression as it has long been for the painter.
The Fantastic Adventures of Cloudman
Look at this! Will you just trust me and watch this thing all the way through? It’s absolutely brilliant! It mixes techniques like they are child’s play! Stop-motion, hand-drawn, live action super 8, claymation, psychedelic explosions, fireworks exploding from the heads of alien attackers when they die, forest battles, miniature model sets! It’s incredible. It deals with mythical forces at battle. The director, Phoebe Parsons, has enormous talent and filmmaking know-how and is going be making very excellent films well into the future. Look out for this young filmmaker.
So this Cloudman is created when a pilot gets shots down and his blood mixes with a cloud. That’s the gorgeous opening animation that sets our crazy story rolling.
This film is… well… I love to use a cliché, but it’s mind-bending! Super cool and totally far out!
This is one of my favorite films online I think. Spectacular.
There’s a PhoebeParsons.com.