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    Around the Block: David Zinn’s Quirky Chalk Cartoons Spring to Life in a New Short Film

    
    Animation
    Art
    Illustration

    #chalk
    #drawing
    #public art
    #short film
    #street art
    #video

    January 15, 2021
    Grace Ebert

    
    If you’ve walked the streets of Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the last few decades, you’ve probably spotted the wide-eyed monsters and mischievous dragons of David Zinn (previously). Since 1987, the artist has been drawing chalk-and-charcoal creatures in site-specific works that wash away with the rain. Drain pipes become robotic dogs, a pillar morphs into a giant pencil, and a green monster pops out of a brick walkway.
    A new short film directed by Jonnie Lewis dives into Zinn’s practice by animating his signature cartoon cast that greets the artist as he walks around the city. Watch “Around the Block” on Lewis’s Vimeo, and check out more of Zinn’s eccentric creatures on Instagram.  (via Laughing Squid)

    #chalk
    #drawing
    #public art
    #short film
    #street art
    #video

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    A Turbine-Faced Pilot Returns from War in a Surreal Animated Short About Love and Transformation

    
    Animation
    Art

    #black and white
    #short film
    #surreal
    #video

    October 30, 2020
    Grace Ebert

    
    Presented by the National Film Board of Canada, an animated short by Montreal-based director Alex Boya considers the complex effects of war through a heartwarming tale. “Turbine” opens with a woman climbing aboard a train that inches along the track like a worm. The black-and-white film then chronicles her journey reuniting with her pilot husband, who returns from war with an airplane engine permanently replacing his face and subsequently falls in love with the ceiling fan.
    Through incredibly rich renderings—the wrinkles on the characters’ hands and the whorling patterns in their hair are particularly detailed—Boya depicts peculiar scenes and quiet domestic moments to share a story about love, humanity, and transformation. In an interview about “Turbine,” the director says the film’s distinct style came about organically:
    It felt like creating sober instructional illustrations of real things, with an honest attempt to simply survey their opaqueness and shadows in a photorealistic world. Just like I focus on the water instead of on my body when I swim, it works not to think of style, but simply on the subject matter that is being drawn.
    For more short films, see the board’s Instagram and Vimeo, and check out Boya’s site to explore the entire Turbine Universe, which is complete with dozens of sketches and gifs of the hybrid character.

    #black and white
    #short film
    #surreal
    #video

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    A Disorienting Short Film by Lydia Cambron Recreates ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ in Quarantine

    
    Art

    #COVID-19
    #humor
    #movies
    #science fiction
    #short film
    #video

    August 16, 2020
    Grace Ebert

    [embedded content]

    Eerie, hypnotic, and faithfully depicting the dismal reality that is 2020, a new short film by Lydia Cambron envisions her recent quarantine experience under the frame of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. In 2020: An Isolation Odyssey, the New York City-based designer recreates the 1968 version’s iconic ending as a way to “(poke) fun at the navel-gazing saga of life alone and indoors,” she writes in a statement.
    Positioned vertically, the characters’ movements are synchronized perfectly, but while the original film’s Keir Dullea wades through the ornate home in an astronaut suit, Cambron sports a face mask and latex gloves. The reenactment is situated in the designer’s one-bedroom Brooklyn apartment, and while it maintains the domestic qualities of the original, it also features contemporary updates, like a MacBook sitting on the table rather than a lavish meal. She even parallels the minutes-long credits precisely.
    Cambron notes that the contemporary version considers a similarly disorienting life. “Multitasking while #wfh, conjuring guilt or longing with unused exercise equipment, your entire being reduced to a measure of time—these scenes all illustrate the absurd comedy of trying to maintain control during this unprecedented and unpredictable time,” she explains.
    Follow Cambron’s parodic explorations—which include an annual exhibition titled JONALDDUDD— on Instagram and Vimeo. (via Daring Fireball)

    #COVID-19
    #humor
    #movies
    #science fiction
    #short film
    #video

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    A Carnivalesque Short Film by Fernando Livschitz Imagines a Buoyant Vienna

     “Vienna is like…,” a new animated short by Fernando Livschitz (previously), brings a heavy dose of the absurd to the Austrian capital. The director, who’s from Argentina and heads Black Sheep Films, captures an imagined Vienna in which historic buildings float in the air and a massive, multicolored slinky connects public transit cars. Watch […] More