Halloween is drawing near, so what better time to celebrate with a couple of fine filmic examples of spookystuff? With that in mind, I've decided to post a couple of clips of a creepy nature. Creepy as in "designed to give the viewer goosebumps" not creepy as in "old man lurking around a park wearing nothing but a long raincoat" creepy. Hopefully its dark where you are so you can turn off the lights, put on some headphones and turn up the volume in order to enjoy the full effect. Mwooohahahahhaaa!
First up Smile, is a short CGI enhanced student film from Israel by Yuval Markovich and Noam Abta, produced at Bezalel Academy of Arts & Design in Jerusalem some time ago. Warning: the preceding link is to their showreel, which features various instances of at times rather graphic animated violence.
Egads, that cat!
Personally, I regard Smile as being a fine example of creeping paranoia in action.
Next up is a trailer for the excellent 2007 French animated film Fear[s] of the Dark (Peur[s] du noir) which is all kinds of gorgeous.
If you enjoyed that I highly recommend you track down a copy of it. Its masterfully constructed and works on a number of visceral levels, really worming its way into one's subconscious in a delicious fashion. You can read a bit more about it here. Official website (in English) is here. And (at the time of writing) you can see a segment of it on youtube right here.
Kiwi (kē'wē, pronounced [kiːwiː], "kee-wee"). The kiwi bird. Flightless, small, ancient. Endemic to and national symbol of New Zealand. And sadly, due to various factors such as introduced predators and the increasing loss of their natural habitat due to human activity, on the endangered species list. I was born and raised in New Zealand and I've only seen a kiwi in the flesh once. In a zoo. Mind you I don't tend to spend any time in the sorts of places one might come across a kiwi in the wild. I have a great deal of affection for the ol' kiwi bird. It was walking about in New Zealand for far, far longer than any of my species have been. Here are a few facts about the kiwi:
• The kiwi is the smallest member of the family of birds called ratites. This group includes some of the worlds biggest birds like the emu, ostrich, as well the extinct moa and the elephant birds of Madagascar. • Kiwi cannot fly (I assume the great majority of you already knew that), and lives in burrows on the ground. Like all ratites they have no keel on the breastbone to anchor wing muscles, and barely any wings. • They have a highly developed sense of smell, unusual in a bird, and are the only birds with nostrils at the end of their long beak. • They're about the size of a chicken and live in pairs. They weigh from 2 3/4 to 9 pounds (1.25 to 4 kg). Once bonded, a male and female kiwi tend to live their entire lives as a monogamous couple. • Kiwi eggs can weigh up to one quarter the weight of the female. The kiwi lays the biggest egg in proportion to its size of any bird in the world, roughly six times the size of that of a domestic chicken egg. • The kiwi has a life span of up to 40 years. • They're predominantly nocturnal, but in areas that are protected from predation they're quite often seen about in the daytime. • They are featured on the New Zealand one dollar coin. • Kiwi eat small invertebrates, seeds, grubs, and many varieties of worms. They also may eat fruit, small crayfish, eels and amphibians. • There are five accepted species of kiwi (one of which has four sub-species), plus one to be formally described. The five accepted species are the Great Spotted Kiwi (or Roroa), the Little Spotted Kiwi, the Okarito Brown Kiwi (or Rowi), the Tokoeka and the North Island Brown Kiwi. • The plural of kiwi is kiwi, not kiwis. Just so you know I'm not making any kiwi typos in this article.
The kiwi bird is a New Zealand cultural constitution. To the extent that the colloquial name for New Zealanders is "kiwi". When referring to New Zealand people as kiwis the s is used for the plural. Back in the day before New Zealand television channels broadcast 24 hours a day, the clip below was played every night just prior to the end of the day's broadcast. Its ingrained in my childhood memory as deeply as Santa Claus.
D'awww, wasn't that lovely? This animation was played on Television One and Television Two between 1981 and 1994, with its last screening on October 19, 1994. I guess the kiwi and cat slept elsewhere on rainy nights. Its a fine example of humankind's proclivity to gloss over the realities of life with cutsieness. In reality of course, that cat would have eaten that kiwi the fuck up. Surely I was not the only child to have grown up with that particular thought in my mind about that animation.
Go to any tourist shop in New Zealand and you're guaranteed to find the kiwi's likeness plastered over all sorts of things, Tshirts, postcards, buttons, kiwi plushies of various sizes and so on. Its image is all over New Zealand really, from business logos to anti-littering signs to coats of arms and all manner of artwork.
One other thing I've noticed about the kiwi over the years is that it has a funny sort of pull on people. It tends to crop up now and then in some pretty random instances, not just in New Zealand but internationally. Like this drawing by a certain California based cartoonist for instance. And it is with that in mind that I'd like to present these two animations. The first one is by this fellow here. At the time of writing its had 23,773,920 views. Wow I say, wow:
Pretty poignant huh?
And then.. then there's this fucked up thing:
Heeee hee hee that wee kiwi he so hyper. There are 3 seasons worth of these 4 minute animations. A kiwi in an animated Italian cooking show. Fucking. Random.
Hopefully you've enjoyed this brief write-up on the kiwi, a critter that is really quite dear to my heart.
And with that, I shall leave the final word to the kiwi itself.
You uhh, might wanna turn your speakers down a bit prior to clicking that link.
Today I'm writing about a short film that was released in 2005, which has been lurking about on a couple of my hard drives these last two and a half years. So its been out awhile, and chances are you've already seen it, or at least heard of it, but for those who haven't here's a brief rundown. Jasper Morello and the Lost Airship is the first film in the Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello series, and as its the only film of the series to be released thus far I'll be concentrating on that for this journal post.
A few things about the film: • The film is set in a world not dissimilar in style and societal preciosity to that of Victorian England, although this world has many elements of steampunk archetypes, such as steam powered computers and iron airships. Y'know, lots of cogs n stuff. Steampunk! • The cast and the vast majority of the foregrounds are animated in a two dimensional silhouette style, similar to that of Indonesian Wayang shadow puppet theatre. • It was directed and conceptualized by Australian director and animator Anthony Lucas, and scripted by Mark Shirrefs. • After it had been written, the film took around a year and a half to make. • The film employs a number of different animation techniques to achieve its look, with characters drawn on paper, cut out and scanned into Photoshop, where they could then be manipulated digitally. 3d models were used to create the airships, and CG was used to create the sky and atmospheric effects.
All in all, the design, style and innovative methods and techniques used in the construction of the film are a great mix of the old and the new. Because its a fairly short film I'm not going to get into the plot too much, as I don't wish to spoil anything for those of you who haven't seen it. But I will point out that the majority of the film takes place in the sky, as the titular hero of the film is employed as the navigator of an airship that sets out on a voyage to place signal beacons for a new trade route. This mission however, soon diverges into something decidedly more sinister. Its a film I am really rather fond of, and I look forward to the release of the next film in the series. I'm going to shut up now and leave it up to you to have a watch of it if you have a spare 26 minutes. 1° can make a world of difference to the course of a navigator's life.
That's one cool critter huh? The official Jasper Morello website can be found here. ☠ Chloé
Hey there folks. Welcome to another Randomitronica post. This week I'd like to write about a certain animator and his work.
The animator's name is Adam Phillips, he currently lives in Sydney, Australia. He's animated a great many things, but the main focus of this blog will be on the subject of his Brackenwood series of short animations. There are currently 6 animated Brackenwood shorts (plus a music video thingy) available at Phillips' website www.biteycastle.com . They feature the doings of various denizens of Brackenwood, a planet mostly covered in forest, full of various creative forms of wildlife sprung from Phillips' imagination with a dash or two of mythical creatures and Cryptozoology thrown in for good measure.
The main character (I hesitate to refer to him as a protagonist, he's much more of an antagonist) is Bitey, a satyr/faun, who also happens to be the fastest creature on the planet. Bitey is not a nice guy. Apart from the basics of day to day survival in this world, Bitey's main focus tends to be creating mischief towards and at times downright malicious havoc upon his fellow forest dwellers. Well, at least the ones that are smaller and weaker than he is.
Lookit him there, looking all sinister n stuff.
Personally, I think he's great. He looks after himself, takes the piss out of everyone, and can move like a motherfucker. Here, have a look for yourselves.
Now bear in mind that this stuff was animated by only one person, Phillips himself, in Flash. There is a plan for a Brackenwood feature film that has taken its first few tentative steps towards being a happening thing. Phillips has just scratched the surface of the potential of his characters and world in the Brackenwood shorts, I for one reckon a feature length Brackenwood animated film would be a mighty cool thing indeed. So hopefully it does all come together and Mr. Phillips gets the support and financial backing to turn his goal of expanding this concept into a film with A grade production values and with the freedom and time to do it the way he envisages it.
It would certainly be vastly, vaaaastly more entertaining than trash like this. Eh? Eh? Ammirite? Of bloody course I am.
Incidentally, a few years back Phillips did this poignant little music video for Ween. This video clip was my first exposure to Phillips' work, and is how I discovered Bitey Castle in the first place.
Hopefully you'll enjoy having a look through the animations on the BiteyCastle site as much as I do. Be sure to click the castle next to the header in the animations section for a bunch of other animated goodies. As for moi, I'm off to bake/burn some cookies. __________________________________________________________________________________________
Before I go though, here's a bonus clip of Joe Pesci havin' a rap. He's like, totally serious yo. Fffpmmwaahahaha! Good grief O_O
Yes, that is indeed Naomi Campbell as the "brunette". Thanks to Akira The Don for bringing to my attention this sterling example of a complete lack of taste and good sense.
Randomitronica — what's it all about then, eh?
One of the largest cogs of The Vortex Machines, Randomitronica ran from May 8th 2009 until July 15th 2010, and was written in the "voice" of Chloé Kovac, one of the main characters in Maxwell Vex's Agents of the Endtimes webcomic (which can be found here).
Randomitronica contains a bunch of opinions, reviews, interviews, general musings on various topics that Chloé found of interest, and probably more than a handful of now-defunct hyperlinks.
Posts
