Annecy 2015 – Commissioned Films in Competition
One of the many great things about this particular list of films from Annecy 2015, is that pretty much all of them can be watched online already. Its a great mix of music videos, adverts, shorts and TV stings. So why not go ahead and look a few of them up!
The Simpsons “Couch Gag”
Sylvain Chomet – United Kingdom
The Simpsons have been producing some really interesting guest couch gags recently, including this one by Sylvain Chomet. Really fun use of French stereotypes and iconography.
France Télévisions “En avant toutes!”
Célia Riviere – Germany
An advert for International Women’s day and the television focus on women in history. Lovely design style, 2D animated characters, with women represents in historical events and images that we would traditionally associate with men. Ending with a woman in the dominant role on the SETI plaque.
ITFS 2015 “Filmfabrik”
Alireza Hashempour, Malaeke Farhangadib – Germany
An ident for the Stuttgart Festival for Animated Film. Its a 2D surrealist piece that takes us through the process of animation in this strange world they’ve constructed. Also a quick nod to Steamboat Wille at the start there.
Cruisr “All Over”
Chris Carboni – USA
Hand-drawn music video running us through a vast number of iconic films and characters as they morph in and out of one another. Each character is captured in stark colours and simple shapes, but its easy to tell what or who you’re looking at. And the images flow really smoothly from one character to the next. Nicely put together, and a pretty catchy song too.
Triumph “The Lace Unravels”
Ying-Ping Mak – United Kingdom
Hand-drawn animation of a woman meeting her partners parents for the first time while wearing really uncomfortable underwear. Its framed as part of a stand-up comedy gig where the woman explains the excruciatingly itchy narrative, before we break into seeing the story unravel for ourselves.
Concorde “Sons”
Alexis BEAUMONT, Rémi GODIN – France
A body conscious young woman works out nude in her home, and browses her social network. She has a friend request from a boy she remebers. They agree to go on a date and catch up and the rest of the film is told in tandem with flashbacks of the past. Of their interactions as children and adults and the starkly different circumstances, which although separated by years, are all brought about by the same personal insecurity and self loathing of the main character.
You Know Me
Raj Yagnik – Jordan, Morocco, United Kingdom
Pixilation film of children who desperately want to go to school and get an education so that they can become doctors and teachers themselves. Their narration runs over the top of exaggerated movement and at times they try to fly away as we hear stories of some of the teriible things they have endured in their short lives so far. A well crafted and affecting piece.
NSPCC “Lucy and the Boy” – Cristal Winner
Yves Geleyn – United Kingdom
A 2D film explaining the dangers of children posting images online, giving out personal information and getting in touch with strangers who want to meet them. Really well made, lovely art style and straight to the point.
Airbnb “Wall and Chain”
Marie Hyon, Marco Spier – USA
A strange route for Airbnb to take for this ad. Beautiful character designs and backgrounds, but I’m not sure using the former separation caused by the Berlin wall to advertise their service is necessarily a great match. The ultimate message of the piece is that they bring people together, when in actual fact they allow strangers to rent out their homes to other strangers. It would be incredibly unlikely that a chance booking in a city you used to live in would reunite you with someone you used to know and cure your PTSD all in one go. But it is a very pretty advert.
Children of the Holocaust “Ruth”
Zane Whittingham – United Kingdom
A touching story about a family fleeing east Germany on the eve of war. Produced for a BBC series called Children of the Holocaust, this film is drawn in a child’s style of drawing as a woman remembers what it was like to run through Poland without their father who was a wanted man at the time. At the end of the film when they finally find safety the screen fades to black and endless amounts of text detail how the family fared after war was declared, how they found their father again and where they are now. This film could easily have been longer to cover some of those additional details and it would have worked just as well. But as it was produced for TV, I imagine they were at the limit of what they could fit into the allotted time.
D&AD “Wish You Were Here?”
Mateus de Paula Santos, Loïc DuBois – Brazil
Trail for the anniversary of the D&AD advertising awards. To commemorate past adverts this film jumps around styles and iconic ads, using different artists to craft sections of the whole film. A myriad of animation styles and effects are used here, and it all blends together seamlessly.
Shugo Tokumaru “Poker”
Mirai Mizue, Yukie Nakauchi – Japan
Line animation on coloured textured backgrounds, winged creatures and other animal life. Later on it move on to more complex drawing as one of the creaures forms a bass and begins to divide like a cell and creates new life, bacteria and other small types of life, and the dance together on screen in colourful patterns.
ITFS 2014 “Spiegelei”
Peter LAMES – Germany
Trailer for the German film festival. Post-Its pasted onto the screen, each with information about the festival and what you can see. Lovely idea, but waaay too much information on the screen at once, it’s almost impossible to take it all in before it disappears again.
Michiel Kroese “See Me Again”
Roman Klochkov – Belgium
A 2D music video about a man tormented by the actions of his unfaithful lover. It has a fascinating montage of the ways he contemplates fixing the situation, amany of which involve killing himself. It has a sketchy expressive style that works well and the transitions between scenes are really interesting.
Monkey Tie “Bruce”
Antoine Rota – France
This advert for a recruitment agency begins with Peanuts-style children running and screaming around an increasingly stressed out adult in a museum. The action pauses and the text describes that he is new to this job and does not have the temperament for it. It escalates quickly as he red-Hulks out and begins pummeling the children, throwing them into pillars and each other. Surprisingly violent and incredibly funny. The ad goes on to explain how they could have found the right job for him if he’d used their service. Really bold step for the recruitment firm to take. Loved it!
Ray Ban “Round”
Matthieu Bessudo (McBess), Simon Landrein – France
This Ray Ban ad rendered in McBess’ iconic style follows the life of a guy breaking free from the humdrum of everyday life and throwing on a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses. He grabs a motorbike and travels sylistically down the road to full biker cool.
Penny Dreadful “Dorian Gray”
Gergely Wootsch – United Kingdom
Tie-in animation for the TV series Penny Dreadful. Rather than going into specifics for the show it traces back to the original story of The Picture of Dorian Gray, explaining the basic narrative and even going into how it was used in evidence against Oscar Wilde at his trial.
Indie-Anifest 2014 “One Thousand Buddhas”
Dahee Jeong – South Korea
2D short promoting an independant animation festival, where a man creates one thousand Buddhas, all with unique expressions. As he watches them he realises they are moving and shifting in place, and each expression animates with the next, creating a cinema screening room of tiny Buddhas watching him.
James “Moving On”
Ainslie Henderson – United Kingdom
A fantastic piece of stop motion work here. I’ve seen this film/music video a few times before and I never get bored of watching it. I really like the way it doesn’t shy away from the wool of the characters boiling. And the dancing of the long haired character is just amazing, especially the movement reactive movement of her hair. Its really touching take on life, death and acceptance and certainly worth a watch.
Handicap international “J’ai six ans, je suis handicapé(e), et je vais à l’école. Ça vous étonne ?”
Angelin N’gbandjui – Burkina-Faso, Ivory Coast, France, Mali, Senegal
Unfortunately I don’t speak either of the languages this was presented in. However, it’s pretty clear from the adorable characters and setup that this is an anti-discrimination piece about a little boy who likes a girl with only one leg. The children are not phased by this, only the adults show any sort of reaction. Beautifully drawn with some really lovely character design.
Nick Jr. Crafty Creatures IDs “Penguin”
Stefan Schomerus – Germany
Excellent stop-motion short where a pair of hands build a penguin out of yoghurt pots and foil, it comes to life in the hands as it is built before being placed atop a styrene mountain. It slides down the mountain to the other penguins who turn around to reveal the Nick Jr logo. Lovely.
NSPCC “I Saw Your Willy”
Dan Abdo, Jason Patterson – United Kingdom
Equal parts funny and horrifying, this short about children over-sharing online gets its message across excellently!
Transport et écomobilité
Mathieu Aubry – France
Quite a long one here. It begins with a cute 2D caveman walking in place on the screen. A voice over explains the life of the caveman and he daily activites. Quickly it moves through the history of human development and on to the creation of the wheel. From the wheel it moves to the combustion engine and the first steam powered car, modern cars, then planes.
It diverts quickly to pollution, the stress of driving and getting around, and finally to the message itself, carsharing, public transport and cycling. How cities can redesign their transport infrastructure to better support sustainable and healthy living. And finally we end on that same cute caveman again with the message that perhaps we should spend more time walking like he did.
Sandro Joyeux “Elmando”
Anton Octavian – Romania
Paint on glass music video about a boy who’s mother is taken away by soldiers, and he is left to fend for himself. He is also chased by a group of boys with machetes through the trees, before growing up to a happier life. The scenes jump back and forth a fair bit, I think linking certain images with sections of the music, so that as a particular melody repeats, so does the visual, which was a little confusing narrative-wise at times.
Rotary “Fateline”
Suresh Eriyat – India
This film begins with a very long text introduction explaining how the music they had originally intended to use was scrapped in favour of a song the children they were recording with were singing, about breaking free from child labour. The film itself is line animation on top of a textured surface. At first all you can see is a child plastering the wall of a cell, before the perspective moves out and you realise that the texture is the surface of a hand. The child uses the lines of the hand (the fateline) to escape to a larger hand, which has a computer and books on it. The child has managed to break free and go to school.
Royal Observatory Greenwich “Sun”
Amael Isnard – United Kingdom
An infographic style film about the life-cycle of stars, and more specifically our own sun. Informative and fun to watch.
Lumberjacked
Joel MacKenzie – Canada
Nature vs industrialism in this wonderfully eclectic 2D short. The design style jumps around a lot, which I loved, eventually turning into a side scrolling pixelated video game. This one can be found on Vimeo, and I recommend checking it out.
Throne “Tharsis Sleeps”
Tom Bunker, Nicos Livesey – United Kingdom
Cross-stitch on denim 2D music video. It’s an interesting style that I haven’t seen before, created on embroidery machines, because can you imagine hand stitching all that yourself? Nightmare! There’s a lot of space travel, explosions and things crashing to earth. I think it may have been about terraforming a planet, but honestly, even though it is an interesting style, it can be a little hard to follow, especially for a story with such fast paced action.
MadSkills Motocross 2 Trailer
Marc-Antoine Deleplanque – Belgium
A 2D advert for a motocross mobile game. Set in a retirement home, an old woman finds a mobile phone with the game on an it revolutionises life in the home. Really weird style of ad for this type of game. Cutting between game footage and the 2D home, it doesn’t really fit together at all.
Shirley Bassey “If You Go Away” (Rebeat Remix)
Ashkan Rahgozar – Iran
In a futuristic setting, a man purchases a machine built in the image of his deceased wife. He begins to download her memories into the new body while the authorities track him. Its a poignant tale that uses flashback to facilitate the emotional pull. Suits the song it is made for really well.
Riot Games “The Harrowing”
Andrew Hall – USA
Ad for an expansion of video game League of Legends. CG, but primarily it is a puppet show with some really well-designed CG marionettes. Nice style, not sure how representative of the actual game it is. But I would happily watch a film just about the CG marionettes.
The Peach Kings “Mojo Thunder”
Vikkal Parikh, Benjy Brooke, Kris Merc – USA
A black and white music video, with a hand-drawn and paintbrush style on a canvas texture and arresting visuals.
A man pursued, controlled, manipulated and tortured by dogs, alligators, drink and women. Although it is unclear if all of these are one single tormentor dressed up as different elements in his mind.
Clash of Clans “Flight of the Barbarian”
Fletcher Moules – USA
Another Clash of Clans ad. You’ve probably already seen it online or skipped it on your way to another video. But this one is actually pretty fun, following a Barbarians travel across the battlefield. Some good jokes, but clearly way more interesting than the game itself.
Absolut “Dark Noir”
Rafael Grampa – United Kingdom
A CG/2D short, pretty standard film noir fare, but with a fantasy twist. All of the characters have 2D Daemons attached to them. Personally I found this mix of styles jarring, the character designs don’t mesh well together, and the bright colours of the Daemons stand too far apart from the brooding dark quality of the CG visuals. The story also felt a little rushed and tied up quickly with a lot of convenient coincidences. It was also surprising to see at the end that this was for Absolut Vodka.
Royal Blood “Out of The Black”
David Wilson, Christy Karacas – USA, United Kingdom
A mix of 2D and live action, this short follows aliens dressed in fluffy animal costumes as the go on a bloody rampage, and the convenience store clerk trying to stop them/get his chocolate bar back.
The use of 2D and Live Action allows for sceenes of ultra violence and phsically impossible moves and difficult shots. Conveniently whenever the action stops and switches back to live action the aliens have replaced they masks. Nice art style, and an interesting idea.