Taipei Competition 3

The Sword into Tomorrow
This is also known as Tomorrow Step on the Sword in the full program guide, which is fantastic Engrish right off the bat. Basically, this is a very detailed, very well lit and polished 3D CG short about a tubby, smily ninja guy who wants to steal a scroll from some tomb, and has to fight a skeleton demon. The action is great as are the effects, but the whole film comes off as kind of dull as it has no real story to it. Well, okay, it has a story, but it’s so forgettable that it does nothing to support the rest of the work done on the piece and leaves it flaccid.

mommo
I liked this a lot – it’s about a boy who tries to help a rabbit fly across a chasm to get to a field of carrots. A lot of why I liked this is the fact that while it uses a paper-cutout/handicraft appearance to the animation, it still manages to be humorously bloody with its comedy. In other words, the appearance and feel lends itself to kids animation, but the content isn’t. Awesome.

The City of Oblivion
The first artsy piece of the show, it’s about an umbrella thrown away by a girl who has purchased a new one, and its nighmarish descent into awkward parallax animation and a world of discarded object creatures that work hand in hand with the loud music to give you a feeling of uncertainty and unease. It’s interesting, but I wouldn’t watch this before going to bed – you’ll dream some bizarre shit. Oh yeah, it’s supposed to be an environmental message too, so stop throwing away creepy umbrellas with buckets for heads, ok?

On a Diet
This was a hand drawn animation that was both detailed and stylized in a fat sort of way about the different things people do to lose weight and what they do when they diet. Short, focused, not bad. Kinda Plympton-y in some ways.

The Woman with Pearls
ARTSY FARTSY GET! This was a surreal piece about a woman who continuously splits pearls from her body, and the bird creatures that covet her pearls and stalk her as a result. This was a long piece, and was (from the following interview) intended to symbolize women’s fear of growing old. I would suggest knowing this before watching it, as you’ll get more out of it this way and you’ll be less creeped out by it.

Secret Piano
Another piece from Word Fisher Animation Studios (like the 2 in the last show), this one is about a boy who loves to play on his toy piano. His mother notices this, and buys a real piano for him, but there’s something about it that scares him. I liked this one a lot as it had a memorable story, sound that worked to enhance the story, and the animation style is both cute and expressive at the same time.

Grandpa & Bicycle
I saw this one previously in the animation segment of the Taipei Film Festival earlier, and it still retains its badassness – it’s simply a cute story about a Grandpa who goes apeshit on a bike trying to deliver his granddaughter’s forgotten wallet to her. The animation style is like cut out pieces of paper layered on top of one another, and it’s very well done. One thing I liked is that during the interview, the director said that his goal for the film was simply to tell a story. He’s done that, and I’d recommend looking for this short.

Childish Love
Though this film was kind of rough in terms of animation and general appearance, not to mention the fact that the kid’s face looks MESSED UP, it’s very good in delivering its message about domestic abuse, which is a problem in Taiwan right now to boot.

2007 The Auntie Tiger
This is an animated interpretation of a Chinese folk story called “Tiger Aunt”, which apparently goes like this: “There is a tiger aunt that visits children from time to time, and when the children go to sleep, she eats their fingers.” Kinda like a Candyman story for kids or something. Well, this animation shows a girl baiting and then savagely beating Auntie Tiger, mercilessly, enough to make you feel sorry for Auntie Tiger. I think this is pretty much like if you become vegetarian, then somebody waves a perfectly done filet in your face then beats you about the face and neck with a Datsun. Well animated, but kind of messed up.

Reminiscence
Another long, kind of artsy piece. The character’s faces are kind of rough, and the animation is a bit rough as well, but everything seems put together reasonably well. This is one of those “coming to terms with the death of {important person}” shorts. A bit long, but I’d say it was good.

Beaver
This is a short short about shaving…..HEY! NO! NO! BAD READER! BAD! How could you think of something like that! Look, so it’s named “Beaver” for some Engrish reason, but it has NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT! JEEZUS! Look, it’s about a guy whose facial hair keeps growing and he…hey, are you even listening? WTF? HELLO, MCFLY! Ok, it’s about his repeated efforts to shave his ever growing face, and it has a nice 70’s sparkle-fresh design to it, it looks like it’s too smooth, and it’s kind of short and a bit forgettable aside from the graphic design. Did you get that? Good.

Black Scissors
This one was pretty awesome, though I take issue with some of implied meaning of the short, in terms of “well, why the hell’d he do that?!”. Basically, a boy discovers a film reel that shows the events of his recent life in it, and a pair of scissors. Whenever he cuts a frame from the reel, that event becomes erased from history – it never happened. The look of the film is quite good, and the story’s put together pretty well – I like the concept, and I’d suggest looking for it.

Nian
Imagine taking a cel-shaded animation, and then thickening the lines by about 5-50 times and then giving everything a watercolor appearance, which also means that you remove almost all disernable detail from a shape. I know this was done to make the animation look like old Chinese watercolor paintings, but it’s kind of overdone. Also, the frame rate is too high, making the animation too smooth(looks “computery”), and doesn’t jive with the feel of the film. It’s okay in a cultural-neat sort of way though.

That’s all for now! I’ll post more later, including stuff on the Q&A session that followed this show.

Taipei Competition 2

The Ringmaster
This is the first of several films by Word Fisher Animation Studios, which is mainly a guy named Wenchung Lu. This one was pretty cool, though a bit long, and the audio was kinda distorted. It was also kind of dark at the beginning, and there is a scene where the boy hangs himself from a tree. At this time, they put a large message up on the left side of the screen, which I’m guessing meant “Don’t do this at home”, probably because Taiwan’s already had problems with people committing suicide, particularly in a copycat fashion to news events. Nothing says “THIS FESTIVAL IS AWESOME” like opening with a little-boy-suicide scene. It gets happier later I think.

The Whistle Stops
This is the first Taiwanese Taiwanesey film, which gets into stuff with symbolism and indirect hatred of the Japanese. I only say this because it clearly focuses around a retro toy robot that is both a toy from a now dead father, a troop stomping death machine, and a empathetic automaton all in the film. Also, because during the Q&A, the director wanted to focus on the fact that it was the Japanese that started this shit way back when. Kinda long for me, but it was pretty high quality and the train scenes were very Taiwanesey feelin’.

P Lee Frog
What happens when you take Crazy Frog and have him(well, I’m pretty sure Crazy Frog’s a him, with his nubbin’ ‘n all) in 4th wall breaking scenarios between film strip frames, much like the Chuck Jones classic Duck Amuck? I wouldn’t know, since what I saw was a blatant ripoff of Crazy Frog doing generally uninspired “antics” between movie frames for barely a minute. Shiny crap, basically. The filmmaker is apparently an industry veteran of 8ish years working on commercial stuff, which may explain why this will appeal to two groups of people: A) corporate people, and B) people who can’t tell this is in fact, not Crazy Frog, and paw at shiny objects.

Claw Tropolis
This was the first film I was actually impressed by, mainly due to the design of the “claw bus” in the film. It has a distinctive look and has good character design and story flow. Also, it’s about a guy who does bad things to good people because he got cheated out of going to an event he’d been waiting for – something we can all relate to.

The Shoes
This was the second film from that Word Fisher group. You know that it must be a good film if it opens with 8 or 9 different “IT WON AN AWARD” and “IT OPENED SOME FILM FESTIVAL” statements, all with pretentious wings by the statement to let you know that it’s super-film-festival-ly. And yet, the film was something like twice as long as the “OMG AWARDZ EVRYWR!”. Good, short, predictable.

Popa Family
If you could vote a film for failed potential, this would be it. I say this mainly because it has parts that come AMAZINGLY CLOSE to shoving it into a Sick & Twisted show, but ends up being super kid friendly in a drooling toddler approved sort of way. This section was super long because it was three shorts, all of which followed an episode formula of crisis, let’s see what the asshole daughter does and laugh at her cruelty, and then let’s have the wise father come up with an idea and save the day.

Joke Series
I doubt this will be a prize winner, but it was really good nonetheless. All it was was 3 jokes (kinda like “a guy walks into a bar” jokes) with animations to illustrate/explain the joke. The second one, which was about an oversexed rooster, was chock full of awesome.

The Mosquito Effect
Apparently, this was based on “The Butterfly Effect” of chaos theory, which states that “it is possible through a chain of events for a butterfly flapping its wings to cause a typhoon across the world”. In this one, they say they examine “how one mosquito can change the fate of a man”. What you get is something more akin to reading a Choose Your Own Adventure book with two fingers to hold your place so you can try a different path later. Note that this has less to do with chaos theory and more to do with what ifs. Okay film, but the “Mosquito Effect” copycatting of the “Butterfly Effect” gives it +15 to Pretentiousness and a -10% To Hit Credibility.

It’s also notable that this, like The Whistle Stops, seems to use character models that seem like they’re pulled out of Poser or some other “stock human” 3D model pack. They look good, but it looks like a higher quality version of what the news programs use to make a “re-enactment” scene of a murder, gangland killing, rape, etc. I must say though, that this film did a REALLY good job of recreating a Taipei apartment and street, from the windows to the Taiwan Beer can a drunk is holding.

Cutting
Super short, super cool. Blends real-life video with realistic computer animation that’s hard to detect at first, so it looks really nifty and artsy.

Movement and Stillness
Meh. Didn’t care much for this one, which shows a still room with a piece of paper that comes to life with fishes ‘n shit. Looks like a student demo reel, what with all the wireframe fishes in an animation building layers to a fully textures and lit fish doing said animation.

Love Plug Love
Male plug tries to hook up with female outlet. Antics ensue. Short, funny.

13months
I loved this one and wouldn’t mind seeing it again – it’s an animation going through the animals of the Chinese Zodiac, but it uses a very expressive animation style that looks like a cross between watercolors and particles(like sand). It reminds me of the fucking amazing animation The Bead Game, which is a product of Canada’s Film Board. Not as expansive or badass as The Bead Game, but similar in animation style and flow that are both playful and mesmerizing, one form evolving into another while never losing the viewer’s attention, interest, or understanding. You can’t help but be fascinated by experimental animation like this.

I got a 10 ticket superpack for 1600NT, which comes out to a little less than $5 a show, each ticket redeemable for any show(except invite only…harumph) in the Festival. Apparently it came with 3 little mini-tickets redeemable for other stuff.

One was for a discount on the catalog-sized program guide, making it $6. Full color, good paper, nice stuff, and it came with a complimentary copy of last year’s guide, which was sold out when I tried to buy it. It’s nicer than the freebie small program guide, though that one is amazingly nice for a freebie.

Another ticket was for a free coffee mug with the festival logo or something on it, but it hadn’t arrived yet, so they gave me a piece of paper with secret instructions to go to a website and redeem my mug of the future for whenever it comes out.

The last ticket, which surprised the hell out of me, was for a ginormous Collector’s Edition copy of World of Warcraft which weighs more than two kilograms. It’s big enough to kill babies with a glance, or at least intimidate the really tough ones. Blizzard’s a part of this year’s festival, and one of the shows is a reel of their CG movies from Diablo II and Starcraft up through Starcraft 2. Because of this, it kinda makes sense that they’re trying to whore out WoW to patrons to get them hooked if they weren’t already. That, and they know how to find the right audience for their games.

They also had a giant inflatable orc from WoW at the cineplex, which they seem to give out to some of the net cafes here. Kinda fug fug.

• It’s more expensive, but it’s not prohibitively expensive; it’s the cheapest of all film formats.
• It’s relatively easy to get the equipment from garage sales or ebay.
• You could imitate the look of film with a normal video camera, but shooting film is an entirely different experience than shooting video. Anyone who’s shot super8 before knows what I’m talking about.
• Watching footage from a projector is such a different (and cooler) experience than viewing the same stuff via a dvd player and TV.
• Film is still the best archival media format. I could write a whole series of posts on this one, but it’ll be easier if you just check out the Home Movie Day or Film Forever sites.

Anyways, I thought I’d share some of the footage I got back from the developers, mainly for my friends in Oz and for Matt, owner of the currently defunct Fatt Matt’s Skatepark. Leave relevant comments if you want the film nerd details (i.e., what camera I used, film stock, film labs, etc.).

Enjoy.

click image link to download film

click image link to download film

click image link to download film

No serious Apple Computer Inc. collection is complete without a pair of these bad boys/girls. Bid now.

Two weekends ago I went to the CCS Holiday Sale, a fundraising event for The Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont. Tons of stuff to be had: original artwork for sale from such lumanaries as R. Crumb, Will Esiner, James Sturm, Art Spiegelman, Steve Bissette, as well as from upcoming artists and CCS students; a silent auction; a live auction, complete with hand-made bidding paddles; an ebay auction that ran at the same time as the event; book signings; CCS Sketch Factory, where visitors can order custom sketches from a CCS student; music; yummy cookies and drink.

There were lots of people in attendance and I got to chat with some of the faculty members and students, especially Steve Bissette –of Saga of Swamp Thing, Taboo, and Tyrant fame– who I met in-person at Home Movie Day last August (more about this in a future post). Several things come to mind:

• Purchased a couple of CCS shirts for myself and as holiday gifts. Only $15 bucks! That’s cheaper than a lot of the cafepress and Hot Topic crap, and a lot nicer.
• Saw someone buy a custom sketch of Harry Potter from the CCS Sketch Factory. I now pity myself for not buying one myself.
• Saw an old Royal manual typewriter with the glass covered keys intact and in working condition. Manual typewriters rock.
• Steve Bissette handing me complimentary signed copies of Tyrant. Interesting story and great Silver Age – style artwork I rarely see in today’s stuff.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mania! For sale at the live auction was a collection of TMNT paraphanalia, like a water slide and clothing, which included a TMNT-branded, short-sleeved, buttoned flannel shirt. Oh yeah, the TMNT collection was donated by TMNT creator Laird himself. And to top it all off, when the TMNT collection was up for sale, a girl dressed in a TMNT costume ran into the room. Radical, doode!

I had a blast at the CCS sale, took lots of pics, shot some super8 mm footage that will probably not come out well, and picked up a couple of nifty holiday gifts. If you reeeally hurry and contact CCS, you may be able to order a t-shirt and/or a poster in time for Christmas. Definitely in time for Boxing Day.

Click here to see the rest of the pics I took from the CCS sale.

The Center for Cartoon Studies
Email: WRITEON9000 – at- cartoonstudies DOT org
Phone: (802) 295-3319

Comics with Problems is an online collection of public service announcement-type cartoons focused on health-related issues. Compiled and edited by Ethan Persoff, the comics vary widely in topic and aesthetics, from Rex Morgan M.D. talking about abortion, to Dennis the Menance and child abuse, to Madonna and AIDS. Reading these comics are surreal and ironic, like reading issue number Eight’s “absolutely psychotic Archie comic written by the F.B.I.,” or the laughable and equally sad anti-drug music video starring Whitney Houston and produced by Nancy Reagan.

My favorite one so far is the current issue, number twelve, “Security is an Eye Patch,” a government funded comic about Amblyopia –Lazy Eye– starring Peanuts characters Sally and Charlie Brown.

Considering that the New Hampshire demographic is fairly homogenous, one has to take their opportunities when events like these show up. At least the tiny asian graphic art exhibit is still on display until the end of the month.

If you’re in the New England Upper Valley area, try and check out this exhibit. It’s short and will give you a chance to cool off from the unusually hot weather. While you’re in the area, also check out The Center for Cartoon Studies in nearby White River Junction.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go to the nearest bookstore right now and start reading.