“Sultana Meadows” is a fine example of the delightful, under appreciated shorts by Spike McKenzie. The unsettling images throughout this video are quite reminiscent of David Lynch, and paint a very weird and wonderful picture.
Relationships tend to slowly draw away our good side, and expose the bad. Mayhap you’ll have much in common with this journey into the bizarre.
For more of Spike visit his YouTube account. I strongly recommend his mock kids show, “Wonderbang Island”.
Another Saturday brings another short film for our readers.
This week was exceptionally difficult, but with some help I selected another short film, “Henri” directed by Will Braden. Henri is a feline who is going to show us a different view on the seemingly carefree life of a house cat. Although this clip is not very weird, it is quite amusing, and certainly worth viewing. Give it a shot. Henri enjoys the attention.
Today’s Saturday Short is a music video made by Chad Vangaalen. Chad is a musician and artist from Canada who rarely leaves his basement, where he is constantly working. Besides his passion for music and the visual arts, Chad also has a passion for skateboarding.
In the video you’ll see that Chad’s music style is a combination of indie, folk, pop, and experimental. He has created a few stop motion videos to advertise his latest album, “Soft Airplane,” but in his other videos he uses computer animation.
Originally, I wanted to use the music video to “Molten Light.” I find the animation as well as the music to be much better, but this video is a little too graphic for our site. There are sequences of strong comic violence and nudity throughout. If that content doesn’t bother you click here.
If you enjoy the music be sure to look up Chad’s alias, “Black Mold,” as well. He just released an album under the name.
This week’s short, Nachtmahr: Geistergang, (Nightmare: Ghost Trail) was written by another fan of ours, Kacper Radecki. This is visually and aurally one of the stranger shorts I’ve come across. Each scene is quite unique. There’s a creature (which took an entire week to make the costume for) dancing in the forest, a series of ruins, a pipe scene, and a bug trying to escape a jar. All of which, along with the whispers and screams in the background, make it true to it’s title; a nightmare.
Kacper is a self-taught photographer and director who plans to study film in the United States in 2010. Our best wishes go out to him in furthering his passion for film.
For a look at Kacper’s photography visit this link.
We are pleased to debut Alfred Eaker and Robbin Panet’s short film film “9” on the web. This is the movie they made for the 2009 48 Hour Film Festival. The rules of the contest festival are simple: every team has only 48 hours to complete the film, and each must incorporate three elements given by the festival : a character name, a line of dialogue, and a prop. Look for a character named “Professor Sherman Kane,” a ball, and the line “I’m not talking to you.”
Rather than making a straightforward short that looked like everyone else, “9” takes an experimental approach, becoming a sepia-hued exploration of domestic abuse through the generations, in a Western setting. The bizarre free-association poetry of John M. Bennet replaces traditional narration. It runs approximately seven and a half minutes.
Alfred’s description of the making of the film can be read in his Reflections on the 48 Hour Film Festival and the “9” Diary.
[Our license to display “9” has expired. We will inform you if this film is released, on DVD or otherwise, in the future.]
At the producers’ request, this film will not be released to YouTube or other video hosting sites, and will be available here for one month only. UPDATE: Because this film was reviewed and linked from Rogue Cinema, we are leaving the film up for another week, until October 12, 2009.