As per Saul Bass…
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Tag: short films
American films — both fiction and doc — are dominated by a tendency to tell you what you are seeing; often they tell you even why you are seeing what you are seeing. And it doesn’t stop there. Many filmmakers feel compelled to even tell you haw you should feel about what you are seeing. We have lost the opportunity of using confusion as a narrative engine. We diminish our capacity for joy in the chaos. Dang. What a shame. Truly.
If you watched “RYAN” last week on this blog, you know of which I speak. If you haven’t start there and then come back.
This short was conceived and animated by Ryan Larkin.
RYAN is a perfect balance of form with content. It is an expressionistic documentary, an animated essay film. It respects life and our struggles. It is about the creative process and inspiration. It is not to be missed. It won an Oscar in 2004.
The internet has given us an abundance of great nature shorts. And it is fantastic. Sometimes I need my beauty and transcendence delivered devoid of human life. Here the bugs and snails traverse the green in splendor.
Life on Moss from Boris Godfroid on Vimeo.
Do you have enough beauty in your life? Do you need something to make you feel that life is worth living? That you are fortunate to be on this planet? That it is a gift to see and experience these things? If so, you may need a prescription for beauty.
Have you learned to foster a deep appreciation for the strange and wonderful? Do you know how to have confidence in your least shared desires? Can you feel that warm surge for the thing that others may instinctively turn away from? If you are missing such pleasures, you need to develop a practice that celebrates difference a little more. You need a course in Fog Appreciation 101.
Do you know what it is like to use your labor, intellect, passion, and creativity in service of something greater than yourself? When you look at the things around you, do you see representations of your commitment or that of others? Are you inspired by the displays of similar commitment in the work and accomplishments of others? I believe that if you can, if you do, you too will do more with the gifts and opportunities before you. Learn to look at the labor encased in the thing that you admire.
It is on these lines that I was inspired by Simon Christen’s short and gorgeous video “ADRIFT”. Granted, I was well prepped for it. I have been living in San Francisco for less than a year. I am still awestruck by the action of fog. And the play of fog with the rest that this land has to offer. Part of the pleasure for me too, was in watching, considering the commitment that Simon must have had to make this movie for us. Thank you Simon.
And before you watch it perhaps you should consider what these feelings I described above would be worth for you. Think about a reverse crowdfunding campaign, where if you knew someone would deliver these feelings and thoughts to you what you would be willing to pay. Think about if you knew someone would have to hike regularly in the cold and in the wet in the early morning hours and then afterwards sort through the results, painstakingly come to know them intimately, aligning them next to each other to such an extent that the beauty maybe started to diminish and the artist behind them might question whether all those days and hours were truly worth it, would they ever get to a point where someone would say “Yeah, that was worth a dollar of my time.” How can we say loudly “Yes, Simon, thank you.”? Luckily, Vimeo has a tip jar. Don’t forget it after you watch.
Adrift from Simon Christen on Vimeo.
Hat Tip to Ryan Heller for sending me the short!
We were promised jetpacks.
That pretty much sums up the state of culture for me. Maybe I am greedy. I have far more movies that I want to see than I have time on earth, so I shouldn’t be complaining, right? I know that we can match people with the movies that they will respond to so much better than we do now. Everyone is in a similar boat of grand abundance. But still… We were promised jetpacks, and have cheese spread instead.
Is it that we don’t try hard enough to create truly original work? Or is it
