Fresh from the Festivals: September 2008's Reviews
In KJFG No. 5, a bear, rabbit and wolf (or Bear, Rabbit and Wolf, if you want to use their proper character names) are hanging out in the forest, playing on crudely fashioned musical instruments and preparing, no doubt, for their next paying gig. Not long after they've started, a hunter and his dog approach, and the band hides until the coast is clear.
It's a very simple concept, executed simply, and the results are thoroughly enjoyable. A bear playing a log like an upright bass, a rabbit tapping its feet rhythmically on a stump and a wolf howling in accompaniment doesn't require state-of-the-art 3D computer graphics to get the point across, any more than Gary Larson or Scott Adams need lavish illustrations to deliver a solid punchline. Director Alexei Alexeev's film is made from drawings on paper brought to life through Anime Studio Pro, and that's enough to make a successful short.
That, and a bear playing music on a log.
KJFG No. 5
Although I immediately tense up when I'm presented with a story about the mundane lives of office workers or a situation which may or may not be a dream, I seem to have a much higher threshold for an equally common set-up -- animals acting like people.
Skhizein The film opens with our protagonist lying on his psychiatrist's couch, explaining his recent troubles. The nervous doctor tries his best to listen, but seems more than a little distracted by the fact that his patient is not actually atop the couch, but floating in the air just next to it.
The next scene is a flashback set in outer space, as meteors hurl through the cosmos, setting up our protagonist's origin (and reassuring the audience that, yes, this is going to be epic). Hearing a strange noise coming from the night sky, he rushes to the window and is bathed in an eerie light, is struck by a large meteor, then loses all sense of... well, everything, actually. When he regains his composure, he finds himself passing through walls, stumbling into things that aren't there, and unable to touch things that are right in front of him.
Through trial and error, he realizes that he is now out of synch with reality by a distance of 91 centimeters. He can pick up the telephone when it rings by standing 91 centimeters to the right of it and grasping it as he would if he were in touch with normal reality. If he needs to exit the door, he must stand 91 centimeters to the right of the door, open it, and walk through the solid wall in front of him. In order to drive his car, he needs to mimic his normal driving activities while floating just outside of his vehicle. And so on. In an ingenious move (and a great visual), he creates an elaborate series of chalk illustrations on the walls of his apartment and his office space at work that provide him with a ready guide for manipulating the world around him.
It's a fun, quirky premise, like something out of Being John Malkovich, but the increasing disconnect with the world around him drives the character into depression, desperation and a hint of insanity. He makes one last-ditch effort to realign himself with reality by further harnessing the power of the cosmos... and let's just say that things don't end well for him.
Skhizein is a beautiful piece of animation, from the character and environment designs to the soundtrack, art direction, coloring, and every other aspect of the film. Writer/director Clapin and animation company Dark Prince spent several years bringing it to fruition, and the care and attention to detail show throughout. Clapin and his crew used a variety of programs to achieve the desired "hybrid" effect, with 3ds Max used for the backgrounds and character animation, Pass-Manager (developed by Sarazin's company Vanilla Seed) for rendering, and After Effects and Dark Prince's proprietary GenerActor software used to coordinate the lip-synch and animate the characters' faces. The meteor and some additional fx were created with film and stop-motion photography, and the end result is a thoroughly engaging instant classic.
Andrew Farago is the gallery manager and curator of San Francisco's Cartoon Art Museum and the creator of the weekly online comic serial The Chronicles of William Bazillion.
The longest and most ambitious of this month's films is Skhizein, an amazing new short by director Jérémy Clapin, with major contributions from 3D supervisor Jean-François Sarazin and producer Stéphane Piera.
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