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.