The Gloaming (2011)
Directed by Nobrai
Written by Niko Nobrain
A pretty crazy short film
in a good way
Image from http://www.cgmeetup.net/home/the-gloaming-animated-short-film-by-sabotage-studio/
It's a lot to put in under 15 minutes--religion, war, politics, and more. This short film has everything from sex to explosion to bulbous hydra human beasts. If that's not enough to draw you on, it's also a mix of many different animation styles.
The Gloaming is 3D, 2D, stop motion, rotoscoping, and probably more that I'm not smart enough to spot. Anyway, just the mix alone is cool, let alone the topic of the film.
So we're in a desert when we meet our protagonist, a sleeping man turned deity. The man awakens, then walks along dunes to find a semi liquid blob on the ground. Upon picking it up it reacts, comes to life, and forms a planet complete with humans.
The man watches his planet progress, and indeed time passes insanely fast on this planet. We go from early man to future enslaved humankind in minutes.
From the beginning of civilization on the planet the man observes how quickly humans take to jealously, greed, and violence, as the first early man covets another's partner so much he kills him just to get her.
Giving up on that part of the world the man spins the planet to find tribes at war. At first when they notice him their war stops to worship, but soon enough they've moved on to destroying each other. The globe spins again and the man observes a civilization more or less something along the lines of the US right now. Families are slaves to processed meat and TV. And on the TV is news about violence.
The man finally comes to a futuristic civilization run by a multi-headed combination of the previous civilization's antagonists. They're harvesting humans for some sort of profit when the man steps in. He crushes one of the mind control satellites only to have another immediately dispatched. The next logical thing is to stop the satellites at the source, so he crushes their dispatch location. This upsets the globular ruler and the man finds himself under attack. He swats at the planet but his arm is stuck. Not only that but the planet begins to consume him! Soon the planet has reverted back to the beige-y blob it started as and it engulfs the man. He's liquified and absorbed, and the blog falls back onto the cracked dry ground it started on. The sun sets.
This film is interesting for a bunch of reasons. Beside the story of the film, the story of Nobrain is interesting too. So you got three homies who worked together in France. They joined forces and created Sabotage Studio. Then they relinquished it in order to take on roles that would allow them more control, from story to style. They became Nobrain, three individual artists acting as one director. Interesting, I'd say.
Also noteworthy is this is a film that transcends language. There's not really any litteral direct conversations between characters. There's grunts and screen and such, and that's all you need in order to understand everything they're saying. Not every wordless film achieves this so successfully.
Favourite scene in my book for this film is pretty much the ending. The man is covered in the sludge and his muffled yell competes against the screeches and screams of the planet and it's dying inhabitants. The rotoscoped look is really fun and intense, and the camera angle is perfect for the action.
Sound team, you're great. Foley is great, music is great. Yup yup.
Directed by Nobrai
Written by Niko Nobrain
A pretty crazy short film
in a good way
Watch it here http://www.nobrain.fr/the-gloaming-online
It's a lot to put in under 15 minutes--religion, war, politics, and more. This short film has everything from sex to explosion to bulbous hydra human beasts. If that's not enough to draw you on, it's also a mix of many different animation styles.
The Gloaming is 3D, 2D, stop motion, rotoscoping, and probably more that I'm not smart enough to spot. Anyway, just the mix alone is cool, let alone the topic of the film.
So we're in a desert when we meet our protagonist, a sleeping man turned deity. The man awakens, then walks along dunes to find a semi liquid blob on the ground. Upon picking it up it reacts, comes to life, and forms a planet complete with humans.
The man watches his planet progress, and indeed time passes insanely fast on this planet. We go from early man to future enslaved humankind in minutes.
From the beginning of civilization on the planet the man observes how quickly humans take to jealously, greed, and violence, as the first early man covets another's partner so much he kills him just to get her.
Giving up on that part of the world the man spins the planet to find tribes at war. At first when they notice him their war stops to worship, but soon enough they've moved on to destroying each other. The globe spins again and the man observes a civilization more or less something along the lines of the US right now. Families are slaves to processed meat and TV. And on the TV is news about violence.
The man finally comes to a futuristic civilization run by a multi-headed combination of the previous civilization's antagonists. They're harvesting humans for some sort of profit when the man steps in. He crushes one of the mind control satellites only to have another immediately dispatched. The next logical thing is to stop the satellites at the source, so he crushes their dispatch location. This upsets the globular ruler and the man finds himself under attack. He swats at the planet but his arm is stuck. Not only that but the planet begins to consume him! Soon the planet has reverted back to the beige-y blob it started as and it engulfs the man. He's liquified and absorbed, and the blog falls back onto the cracked dry ground it started on. The sun sets.
This film is interesting for a bunch of reasons. Beside the story of the film, the story of Nobrain is interesting too. So you got three homies who worked together in France. They joined forces and created Sabotage Studio. Then they relinquished it in order to take on roles that would allow them more control, from story to style. They became Nobrain, three individual artists acting as one director. Interesting, I'd say.
Also noteworthy is this is a film that transcends language. There's not really any litteral direct conversations between characters. There's grunts and screen and such, and that's all you need in order to understand everything they're saying. Not every wordless film achieves this so successfully.
Favourite scene in my book for this film is pretty much the ending. The man is covered in the sludge and his muffled yell competes against the screeches and screams of the planet and it's dying inhabitants. The rotoscoped look is really fun and intense, and the camera angle is perfect for the action.
Sound team, you're great. Foley is great, music is great. Yup yup.
No comments:
Post a Comment