Category Archives: Short Films

As I Am: A Film By Alan Spearman and Chris Dean

by Cimaxion

Emmy-winning filmmaker Alan Spearman made this film about the thoughts and observations of Chris Dean, a young man from Memphis who experienced death as a child when his heart stopped and then lost his father to a shooting. Dean and the filmmaker explore familiar places and find despair, hope and joy in their work. Sean's words are completely and profoundly engaged with the people he knows and loves. He wonders about how to pull one's self out of the seemingly insurmountable conditions of the streets. He talks about the requirement to find something you love and follow it. His writing is magnificent. The film is magnificent. The people in the film seem aware that someone special is in their midst, doing something that is about them and ultimately for them.
 

 

Dad, Can I Borrow the Car? 1970 Disney Driver Education Film

by Cimaxion

 
 
Disney produced this amazingly good drivers education film in 1970. It is one of those cheerfully playful experiments with common avant-garde techniques that were so much a part of seventies culture because of shows like Sesame Street. The filmmaking is generally quite good and sometimes even approaches brilliance. I've been working vaguely and lazily on a new film about cars and Los Angeles and I'm quite prepared to lift some things right out of this film or at least use it as a template for commenting on car culture in this great throbbing fast lane metropolis.
 
Kurt Russell of ham acting fame gives the narration and he's actually good, playing the young man in school who is about to go for his driving test and qualify for the license to kill that will get him lots of action as long as he looks out for little girls chasing big red balls into the street.
 
Enjoy a trip through Los Angeles of yesteryear and remember that cars just work better out here.
 
 

Toc Toc… Toc: 1965 Animation by Luis Bras

by Cimaxion

Here is an interesting character from Argentina who was a graphic arts professor and advertising agency designer. After getting hold of a 16mm film camera, he began teaching himself to animate by watching Disney movies. In the early sixties he met pioneering experimental animator Norman McLaren and upon seeing his work began his serious experimental career with direct painting and scratching on film emulsion.
 
Toc Toc… Toc features scratching and painting on film timed to a soundtrack consisting of a pencil hitting a tabletop.
 
Here are some of the Argentine television commercials that Bras worked on.
 
 

Los Angeles Streetcars – The Final Years

by Cimaxion

 
This is a short documentary about the last of the Los Angeles Yellow and Green streetcar lines of the mid-1950s. For me, Los Angeles is the most beautiful American city because of its nearly mystical relationship with the natural landscape intruding so markedly upon the urban scene. One gets the feeling that at any moment the terrain could obliterate the city entirely. The resulting dichotomy makes for eerie and unsettling intrusions of nature into the urban landscape. Turn a corner, even today, and you are quite likely to find yourself looking up a natural hillside with only a dirt path for access. Old films like these fascinate me for their glimpses of the cityscape and its long-ago relationship to the desert surroundings.
 
 
 

Carry That Weight: Super 8 Film by Andrea Nevi for Italian Tribute to the Beatles

by Cimaxion | 1 Comment

Andrea Nevi of Italy directed this short film that is apparently a music video for a band called Mama’s Gan. The band has recorded a female tribute to the Beatles and this is their version of ‘Carry That Weight.’ I like it and I like the film a lot. I also like that beautiful face of the actress who is probably a member of the band. Incredible! I think I might fly to Italy to meet such a face. Every shot in this film is magnificent, but it’s that face around which the film pivots. I don’t think it is very easy to film a beautiful face. I know I always get very distracted whenever I try. I end up dropping my camera and forgetting all about what I’m doing.

Nevi’s film is a free-flowing beauty shot in Super 8. It won ‘Best Italian Film’ at the International Super 8 Film Festival 2011 in Milan, Italy.

Jam Tomorrow: Animation by Hayley Jukes

by Cimaxion

London animator Hayley Jukes made this stop-motion portrayal of an artist dealing with the various problems encountered when everything in one’s world contains life. Animators give this life to things and can’t always control the outcome. I particularly like the untied sneakers, the coffee urns, and the interesting sofa. Also, I just realized today that some of the music seems to be from a circus. Jukes appears to be making something in a simple way, framing shots so that she can perform and animate in what appears to be a single-handed effort. But she has a natural sense of composition that interests me for its ability to convey a mood. This is not the kind of film one makes to impress people. It’s the kind of film one makes to express something. It has that directness of technique and enthusiasm for mechanical discovery that I see in old avant-garde films of the 1920s and 30s. Jukes is using a very analog fun with cameras and objects style in a digital era and has the requisite talent for all true animators: the ability to imbue things with life.

http://vimeo.com/39724250

L’Amour, Toujours L’amour: A Short Film by Daniel Ablin

by Cimaxion | 1 Comment

Ah yes! Oui! Bon! Merci! The urge to do away with one’s mate in favor of an improved version with more passion never leaves us, does it? But of course when French lovers murder one another it is just so full of life, wit and oh I don’t know what!

This clever and charming film is by Daniel Ablin and features an actor from the Comédie Française, Christian Blanc. The woman is played by Mireille Rivat. The film doesn’t push too hard, favoring a delicate touch with its humor, and it keeps the silent film thing just enough under control and just modern enough to avoid annoyance.

Capsule: A Short Film by Tony Altamirano

by Cimaxion

Tony Altamirano’s film as been an official selection at the New York City International Film Festival 2011, Beverly Hills Shorts Fest 2011, Capital City Film Fest 2011, and the San Francisco Frozen Film Fest 2011. It’s a neat little science fiction surprise with a twist. I like its point of view on the imagination’s ability to transform reality even while putting one in mortal danger.

Documentary: Los Angeles Meets the Megalith

by Cimaxion

Artist Michael Heizer’s enormous new work on the grounds of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art required a 340-ton boulder as its centerpiece. The boulder had to be transported over 100 miles from its quarry. At first, I was very interested in this rock. It’s huge! But soon I became more interested in the city’s reaction to the rock. So this film documents the final few miles of the rock’s journey, but it also documents the people who came out to be a part of the great Los Angeles rock transport. The film is part documentary and part personal impression. The simple fact of the matter is that the rock’s arrival is an unusual milestone in the life of this city. You can tell that simply by looking at the faces in my film.