written by Lance Jones and Jessica Brown of the Animation and Visual Effects Program Louisiana State University Shreveport
Evening Theater’s Jury Chair’s Reel included the following shorts. 
Silhouettes of Jazz Dominik Kaser Martin-Sebastian Senn, Mario Deuss ETH Zurich Switzerland The first video shown was Silhouettes of Jazz. Jazz music plays as the camera takes you though a house where each room has a different 3D objects that look like a blob of plastic are turning in place. Light is casted on them to form shadows on the wall. These shadows turn out to be sculptures that highlight five milestones in the history of jazz. The music changes in each room. The first room represents field workers, the second is instruments that also turn into someone playing them, depending on how the light shines on it. The next is a dancing couple. Then a spade sculpture is hanging from the ceiling. The last objects were music notes. This video captured the jazz is a new light. The music chosen takes you through out different jazz eras.
Project: Alpha Matthias Bjarnason The Animation Workshop Denmark Project: Alpha is about a monkey that has been recruited by a space center. The animated video starts out in a black and white jungle. A monkey sits on a tree branch. He is then captured. He wakes up in a lab. He goes through various tests. He is forced to watch T.V. that shows monkey characteristics as being off limits. He is trained to act human like. At first the monkey acts uncivilized. After numerous tests, he is permitted to go into outerspace. While in the rocket, the picture becomes in color. The monkey makes it to outer space. He then heads back to earth. His rocket crashes into another jungle. He gets out of the rocket like a brave monkey. His head is held high. Other monkeys start to gather around. One walks up and sticks his butt into the face of the space monkey. The space monkey rejects it. He starts to Jury Reel
Barclaycard “Waterslide” Peter Thwaites The Mill United Kingdom “Glide with us.” This slogan marked the theme of Barclaycard “Waterslide.” Starting out what seems to be a boring day in the office, one man discovers a waterslide in his office. He jumps on the waterslide that takes him out of the office all across the downtown area and into his home. On his journey the slide takes him through a grocery store where he grabs food and “glides” across the check out register to pay. This was a very created way to show how Barclaycard understands the efficiency of an easy transaction.
Toshiba “Time Square” Mitch Stratten The Mill United Kingdom Toshiba “Time Sculpture” showed the effects of looping a sequence of live action shots to rhythm. This piece is one shot that revolves counter clockwise around various people and their specific motion and prop usage. Through the use of repetition and its concurrent ability to reset the sequence a natural cadence ensues with unnatural beauty.
Anima Remi Devoussoud, Elliott Kajdan, Nicolas Maurice, Julien Lasbleiz Supinfocom Valenciennes France Anima featured excellent animation depicting zebras and elephants being led to their slaughter, only to transcend their inevitable fate by embodying the essence of an urban cityscape. Anima was dramatic and energetic and lends support to the idea that a concrete jungle, though seemingly sophisticated, represents the primitive nature of man. Friends? Sveinbjorn J. Tryggvason Vancouver Film School Canada Friends achieved huge laughs with his animated short telling the story of two friends playing in the park. The chemistry of their friendship hinges on their strengths- hyperactivity and composure. You can imagine the obstacles this pair will undoubtedly encounter. Very funny!
Unbelievable Four Sukwon Shin and In Pyo Hong Illusion Studio USA The Unbelievable Four, created by Sukwon Shin and In Pyo Hong of Illusion Studio’s took the eighties classic hair metal “The Final Countdown” and combined it with an animated short centered around the tired and truly played out joke that George W. Bush and his administration are both geniuses and morons, able to devise diabolical schemes as complex as they are idiotic. The animation was nice but the plot meticulously tested my ADD.