Michael Jackson's Thriller

Michael Jackson's "Thriller"

Directed by John Landis

December 2nd, 1983

Starring: Michael Jackson, Ola Ray, Vincent Price

Michael Jackson's "Thriller" was a music video that affected not only a generation, but also an entire culture and how music videos were perceived entirely. After selling 9 million units, Guinness World Records listed it as the "most successful music video" in 2006. In 2009, the video became the first music video ever to be admitted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. It received this honor for falling into the "historically, culturally, or aesthetically" significant category. Of course, the "Thriller dance" was instantly a pop culture icon and continues to make it's appearance in the media today.

The narrative of Thriller is truly what sets it apart from the normal music video. The beginning of the video has us spooked when we see Michael Jackson turning into a horrible werewolf right in the middle of his date. However, once it is revealed to only have been a scene from a horror movie that the "real" Michael Jackson is seeing with his date, the viewer takes a sigh of relief. As Michael's date gets scared, the two of them leave the theater and Michael begins to sing the Thriller song while teasing his date. Next, after the two pass a graveyard the voiceover of Vincent Price is heard and we see the graveyard monsters coming to live right before our eyes. With the spooky voice of Price still in the viewer's ears, we see Michael taken over by the zombies and turned into one himself. Alas, the infamous Thriller dance begins with a "human" Michael leading the pack. While they shake and shimmy through the moves we all secretly know by heart, the thrill of the film is kept in tact with a horrified date screaming about her new zombie boyfriend and running off into a haunted house. As the zombies finally are closing in on her she closes her eyes and opens to find herself sitting on Michael's couch back his house. After Michael's sweet smile assures her that it was all a dream and that he will take her home now, we see Michael begin to lead her out only to turn back and flash us his "monster eyes" to finish the film.

It is hard to describe such a cultural revolution when I was not around to experience the full effect of the actual experience. Thriller actually was one of the first music videos I had ever seen growing up which caused me to notice instantly that every music video I saw after that was not the same at all. This video is really almost just another short film and was even released alongside a special theater showing of Disney's Fantasia so that the video could qualify for an Academy Award. When we ask ourselves the question of what makes a short film, how does this video fit into that category? We have the narrative, we have a plot, and we have a genre. While most music videos do not extend the same length that Thriller does, we are still forced to ask ourselves if music videos could themselves be considered short films? I believe that a music video like Thriller is absolutely a short film because it does indeed provide me with a storyline and characters, all while giving me great dance moves to bust out at the next Halloween party I attend.

Rainbow Dance!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbkwZhQWuFs
Rainbow Dance
Directed by Len Lye, 1936, 3:50

In true Experimental film style, Rainbow Dance lacks narrative and seems to be a continuous acid trip. It shows a dancer with various objects, and switches between scenes of this man and other shapes such as fish, and diagonal lines.

I think after a certain point, all experimental films contribute the same thing to the film industry, and to the film audience. Its main purpose is to give the audience a strange experience that they can't get from typical genres of film.

One element specifically prevalent in these experimental shorts is the lack of narrative. I think it's important to note that this is probably the main purpose of experimental films. They're the anarchists of the film industry. Rather than conform to the typical narratives that the rest of the genres follow, experimental films say, "Fuck that" and get their point across in their own way. This is important because it gives filmmakers a way to express themselves in a more abstract way.

Fireworks (1947)

Part 1
Part 2

Fireworks
Kenneth Anger
1947, USA
14 Min

Kenneth Anger's "Fireworks" is a statement about the difficulty of being a homosexual in 1940's America as well as an exploration of the thoughts and feelings of a gay teenage boy trapped in such a culture. Anger's own synopsis of the film states: "A dissatisfied dreamer awakes, goes out in the night seeking a `light' and is drawn through the needle's eye. A dream of a dream, he returns to bed less empty than before." I believe the identity of this "light" is first revealed when the "dreamer" exits the place he had been sleeping through a door marked "Gents." "Light" symbolizes, in my opinion, the fulfillment of the boy's sexual needs. Thus, he goes out into the night looking for "light" and finds it in the form of a muscular sailor.

In the next scene, the "dreamer" is attacked by a group of sailors and beaten badly, cut with broken class and would have had his heart cut out if his heart had not been a gas gauge. Milk is then poured over the "dreamer", a sailor that is meant to seem larger than life then appears with a firework protruding from his pants. He lights said firework and a stream of sparks fly from its tip. The next scene is of a burning Christmas tree and the final scene is of the view of the "dreamer" in bed with a sailor with his face disillusioned by light.

In my opinion, the film is filled with a great amount of symbolism starting with the muscular sailor who I believe is the "dreamers" ideal man, the kind of man he wishes to pursue. The scene in which the "dreamer" is beaten and cut with glass could in fact be a scene in which the character is being raped by a group sailors, brutalized by them, and finally covered in semen (milk). This part of the film confused me and if I followed the train of thought that this scene was a rape scene then it might be an expression of Anger's own homoerotic sadomasochism. The image of the sailor with the phallic firework also led me to this notion as he appears to be "larger than life" and has "light" protruding from his metaphorical phallus. The final scene of the "dreamer" in bed with the sailor whose face is obscured by light leads one to believe that the dreamer found his "light" and that is the reason he returns to bed "less empty than before."

Overall, I believe this film is an exploration of being a homosexual in 1940's American and what it meant to attempt to fulfill the urges that one finds running through their mind at night.

Mongoloid - Devo music video by Bruce Connor

Bruce Connor
1977, USA
3:37



This music video follows much of the same pattern as Bruce Connor's "Movie," the short film we watched in class: bizarre images from spectacles and popular culture smashed together into a whimsical weird montage. In that film, music often contrasted starkly with image to create a witty feel of ironic tension. (Witness men falling off jetskis while somber high-drama music blares on in the background). Much of the same technique is employed by Connor here. This time Devo's "Monogloid" makes up the entire soundtrack though. The song, with it's ironically simplistic chord progression and bleating vocals, makes the perfect contrast to 50's images of smiling men in lounge chairs, a man pulling a bus with his teeth.

Much of the video is filled with old imagery that looks like it could have come from a television special about how the brain works. We see people's heads attached to wired caps, animations of crossing lines perhaps meant to look like neurons, and a sketched cross section of the human brain's reaction to a plate of food. There are also recurring images of bucolic suburban life: waving to the post man, people wearing cardigans, reading papers happily behind desks, clips from cereal commercials, etc. While these images on their own might be difficult to assign meaning to, with the aid of Devo's self-conscious irony, they become instead witty commentaries on what it means to be really brain dead.


View the video here

DRINKING OUT OF CUPS

Drinking Out Of Cups
Liam Lynch, USA, 2006, Approx. 2 mins.



Drinking Out of Cups is an animated short film about a misanthropic lizard who rants about people he is observing. As he talks, the backdrop fades in and out of random locations and oddly literal images from his rant pop up (the lizard calls somebody "Mr. Walkway" and then a walkway with legs strolls by). Short pieces of text occasionally appear to highlight things the lizard is saying.

This is technically a music video-- the audio was taken from musician Dan Deacon's 2003 album Meetle Mice and 3D animation was added over it three years after the fact with no input from Deacon. I mention this to give some kind of context-- I know that the first time few times I watched it I wanted any kind of background. You want something to grab onto that you can use to start to understand whatever this is.

It sounds like a field recording taken outside a bar at 5 am but it clearly is not that because nobody is unintentionally this incoherent. Drinking Out Of Cups can fairly be classified as an experimental short film because it was clearly crafted but it does not make any sense. There was a script written and the animation is of a high enough quality that somebody had to spend a significant amount of time working on the lip-sync and nonsense animations. But it doesn't really let the viewer into its world. It's like a postcard into a bizarro world. There is logic at work but the short doesn't feel like letting you in on that logic.

And I like it for that. It was initially difficult for me to find an experimental short to write about because, no matter how odd, most films have a beginning, middle and end. The difference between this and the art school projects I found online is that it's funny. The viewer is able to follow the nonsense because it's idiosyncratically hilarious. If "follow" isn't the right word, maybe "be pulled along" is a better phrase. It's an experiment that isn't trying to show off to the viewer or academically confound anybody.

Screen Test: Helmut

Screen Test: Helmut

Andy Warhol, United States, 1966

Andy Warhol may be one of the most renowned and controversial artists of the mid to late 20th century. His work, while found in art galleries across the globe and heralded as groundbreaking and enormously innovative, is seen as hypocritically mainstream and pointlessly pretentious in some ‘more authentic’ modern artistic communities (how many times have you see the campbell soup picture on tote bags, stickers, and buttons on your entry-level artsy friend who has whole-heartedly embraced ‘post-modern-art’?). So of course Andy Warhol’s head-scratching journey into filmmaking deserves evokes the same sort of response. Among the films he shot, which include such rewarding gems as “Empire” and “Eat” are about 500 Screen Tests, video portraits that he shot of the attractive, the famous, or the interesting.

“Screen Test: Helmut” is a five minute silent black and white continuous close-up of a young man’s face. The face remains deathly still other than the occasional blink or involuntary bat of his eyelash. The film is slowed down to about 24-frames per-second to capture these slight movements a bit better, but other than this and the choppy fade-in’s and out’s at the beginning and end respectively, nothing changes throughout the film.

Unlike some experimental films, the Screen Test series is relatively straightforward: it’s Warhol’s attempt to use film and video to paint a sort of modern portrait which takes its cues from still photography. The Screen Tests were originally arranged by Warhol into compilations or sets such as “13 Most Beautiful Men” and “13 Most Beautiful Women,” which were projected onto the walls during some of his gallery shows. There isn’t really much deeper meaning in these portraits, other than to capture beautiful people in a modern way. Warhol believed that these Screen Tests demonstrated that beautiful or interesting people could hold an audience’s attention no matter what they were doing.

Although some critics still find merit in these ‘films’ (enough so to get one put on the Cinema 16 short film collection), they would be much more appropriately classified as video-art or even experimental photography. The films lacks narrative, sound, characters, and themes, which all-together create a series case against these portraits as films.

The Darkness Demo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWS9_nrKOPA

The Darkness Demo (Fullyamblomatic review)

by Ben Croshaw

July 24, 2007

This short film is a 3 minute, 14 second review of the video game demo for "The Darkness." The whole video is done using static images and recorded speech. Through the images and accompanying narration, the director takes us through his first attempt at playing this particular game.

The narration and images are humorous throughout with the director making many references and allusions to people, events, and movies in popular culture. There is a definite tongue-in-cheek feel to the short as the gamer evidently did not enjoy playing this demo. It moves at a brisk paces as the narration is done rapidly and the images are cycled through quickly; I enjoyed this because it kept me engaged and on-my-toes.

I enjoyed this experimental short because of the humorous static images and the speed at which the narrator took the viewer through the events. It was well-paced, concise, and witty. The quirkyness of it reminded me of many similar youtube videos that fall into this genre --voiced over static images -- that are renowned on the website.

Good video, different, and funny.

Sintel

Sintel

Directed by Colin Levy, Netherlands, 2010, 15 Minutes

Source: YouTube

Sintel is the story of a girl name Sintel who by chance comes across a wounded baby dragon. After taking the baby dragon in, healing it, and naming it Scales, a older dragon captures scales and takes it away. Sintel then goes on a perilous journey across the world in order to get her dragon friend back. However, when Sintel finally finds scales again, certain events lead to a sad and shocking ending.

When I first saw Sintel I was blown away by the graphics, cinematography, and the story. However, as I watched the short over and over again I began to realize that something was missing. That something depth meaning that this film gives off a feeling that your being rushed through a complicated story. In other words, Sintel feels like it should be a two and half hour epic instead of fifteen minutes of rushed mediocrity. While the various landscapes and shots are stunning, this movie is really disappointing because this deep and amazing story is rushed leaving the viewer wanting more.

However, Sintel is a different type of film than any of the other films posted so far on this blog. Sintel is a free open source movie created on a open source 3D program called Blender. The main purpose of this film was to raise money through DVD sales to help fund the Blender Foundation, which oversees the Blender 3D program. In fact, it's through my interest in the program Blender that I came across this movie and it stuck with me ever since. In case you are unfamiliar with what an open source movie is, it's a movie where by purchasing the DVD you receive all of the files used to make the movie. This unfortunately means that the main reason this movie doesn't stand up well is because it's meant to sell DVDs for the content instead of the story. By rushing the story and making it complicated, the Blender Foundation was able to create tons of content to put on the DVDs that makes them a better deal but at the same time kills the magnificent story.

This still isn't an excuse for ruining an amazing story and Sintel is still an amazing short film. However, in order to see it's beauty you have to really look deep into it's rushed story line and imagine what it would look like if it wasn't rushed. Hopefully at some point in the future, they decide to redo this short and flush it out so the story really gets a chance to shine.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsUlCH1xmC4

This was to be the original pilot for the show Adventure Time on Nickolodeon. However, it was never turned into a full time show, but was later picked up by Cartoon Network. This short tells the story of Pen and his dog friend Jake on a mission to save the Princess from the Ice King.

Personally, if any of you have seen the new episodes on Cartoon Network, I don't recommend it. This short is so much less trippy than the popular kids' show the public now knows as Adventure Time. This short has much better humor and doesn't heavily rely on the strange narration that the new show does. Maybe I'm spoiled by seeing this before the new show came out, but I still think this does a much better job of portraying Pen and Jake's adventures.

While the animation itself is not all that fancy or advanced, it does the job of creating an interesting world for Pen and Jake to explore. It's weird enough to make the show not too cliche, but it's not as bizarre as the newer version. This short is able to get across what it wants to without relying on overstimulating its audience.

Creature Comforts by Nick Park - 1989

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihhq5_2kaWQ


"Creature Comforts" is a claymation short by director Nick Park based around the idea of a reporter interviewing different animals at the zoo to get their opinion on their living situation. Different animals are seen talking into a microphone about living at the zoo and what their take on the situation is. All this comes from Nick Park aka the creator of Wallace and Gromit.

I think that this film is ingenious. First of all the concept of interviewing animals at the zoo in the style of a human interest story for the news, and hearing them talk matter of factly how they would rather live somewhere else, or how they feel safe seems so ridiculous that in a way its hilarious. Their anthropomorphism - everything from rolling eyes, raising their hand, gesturing, wearing old lady glasses plays on stereotypical human characters, combined with their zoo animal situation and story is done brilliantly, and clearly underscored with this very dry humor that the director uses to mesh animal and human together.*** Their very human teeth are out of place, and yet work because they serve to further anthropomorphize the animals. The voices are also very important in that blending. Matching these blase british voices (that are very unlike the dramatic and exaggerated voices we often hear animals given in other films) with the human teeth really gives the viewer the feeling we are seeing people interviewed...but they just happen to be animals. In a bizarre way, it makes ones think about how unfair and absurd the concept of a zoo really is.

The humor in the film deserves to be mentioned in its own right as well. The nonchalant mood of the film juxtaposed with the absurdity of the story being presented is so dry and subtle in its humor that at the end you aren't even quite sure why what you just saw was so funny. The subtlety comes from the bits here and there that are so off the wall - and yet they aren't screaming at you to pay attention to them. For instance the polar bears talking about loving steak, or the eyes of the bushbaby really being glasses, or my personal favorite - when the the chicken is talking about the circus, and in the background you see one chicken snap another chickens beak off its face as if it were wearing one of those fake beaks on an elastic string around its head. All of this is presented as ordinary, but it is so far from that that it end up being highly humorous. Basically after I watch the film I just sat their shaking my head saying "What..." to myself and knowing that I loved it.

If for nothing else (psh) Nick Park deserves to be lauded for his animation technique. This entire piece is done so intricately and perfectly that he effectiveley creates that fourth wall, which is arguably harder in claymation. The voices, the motions, and the almost invisibility of the stop-cutting (sorry if thats the wrong term) all work in harmony and the piece appears seamless. The look of the creatures is also another aspect that adds to the humor of the film. The cuteness, or how some of the creatures are slightly cockeyed, or most noticeably how most of these creatures are much more bizarre looking than their real life counterparts is done just so that even the look of the film is hilarious.

This actually film ended up winning the Best Animated Animated Short Film award at the Oscars, and I believe it completely deserved it.

*** The director used street interviews for the voices of the animals.

Eating Sand

Eating Sand

Aaron Stewart

Country Unknown

Uploaded in 2009

Sometimes you watch something that asks more questions than it answers. This short is one of those things. It begs questions like, what is this, who did this, and why? The information that the poster/creator gives you does not answer any of these questions.

But when you think about, your reaction to the short mirrors the plot (if you can call it that) of the short itself. You stumble upon a strange person doing a strange thing and begin to repeatedly question them. In the short the bird gets his answer in the form of an explanation that seems completely ridiculous to us. The viewer of the short does not get a ridiculous explanation from the short itself, but I think I may have provided one.

But this brings me to a larger point about animation, especially in short film. We have no real idea whether or not the explanation that Billy gave to the bird was ridiculous in the context of the world they exist in. All animated films, movies and shows create a world with rules that different than ours. As long as these rules are internally consistent then we simply accept the creative license that the animators are taking.

However, in a short film, there is no time for the rules of the world to be established. Eating sand is a great example of this because it is so short. We have no idea what if what is going on here is at all normal in this world. Do all of the things there speak in a series of horn notes? Could one house a civilization of sand castle building insects in his stomach? I have no idea, and neither do you.

Now this is not to say that animation cannot be successful in a short film. I love animated shorts. But I think to make them successfully, one has to understand that they work best when they are using surprise. Whether this surprise is unnerving, funny, or (in the case of Eating Sand) just odd, I think that if a short like this can come along and surprise us, then it is not a waste of time.

Hedgehog In The Fog

Hedgehog in the Fog
Directed by Yuri Norstein
Animated by Yuri Norstein
Russia, 1975

We watched this short in a course I'm taking called Russia and the United States. While discussing the cultural discrepancies between the two nations, we watched this as an illustration of Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck's value orientations.

Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck broke culture down into a few categories including human nature orientation (do they think humans are innately good or evil?) and Man vs. Nature orientation (does nature dominate them or vice versa?).

This animated short addresses human nature orientation a few times, namely when our little hedgehog encounters the dog and the fish (or "stranger"). Although there are a few potential "bad guys", no character every actually does some thing bad- whereas numerous characters do kind things for the protagonist. This is a cultural value the US shares with Russia: a general belief that people are good at heart. On the flip side, you'll notice our pint-sized-pal gets knocked around a lot by good old mother nature. He's afraid the fog will choke the horse, afraid of the tree, and let's not forget 7:53 (possibly the most depressing line I've ever heard in a children's cartoon) where the Hedgehog calmly accepts that the river is probably going to drown him. This is a mentality that we don't share, preferring to dominate nature than admit submissiveness, which may be why it strikes me as so horrifying.

Aside from being an interesting take on Russian cultural values, this short also won "Number One Animated Film of All Time" in 2003 at the "All Time Animation Best 150 in Japan and Worldwide" competition.