Short Film Showcase - Rosa (2011)

Presenting short films from independent filmmakers...

Rosa, 2011.

Written and Directed by Jesús Orellana.

Spanish comic book artist Jesús Orellana's post-apocalyptic CG-animated short Rosa has been making quite a stir after being released online on Thursday. Producing the no-budget film at his home in Barcelona over the space of a year after teaching himself the animation package, Orellana went on to screen the visually impressive short at a number of festivals including the Seattle International Film Festival, SITGES, Los Angeles Short Film Festival, Screamfest and Toronto After Dark. With the film proving such a hit following its arrival online, Orellana is attracting interest from Hollywood producers and studios and now plans on turning Rosa into a live-action feature.

"Rosa is an epic sci-fi short film that takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where all natural life has disappeared. From the destruction awakes Rosa, a cyborg deployed from the Kernel project, mankind’s last attempt to restore the earth’s ecosystem. Rosa will soon learn that she is not the only entity that has awakened and must fight for her survival. "


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Short Film Showcase - The Woman in the Room (1983)

The Woman in the Room, 1983.

Written and Directed by Frank Darabont.
Based on a story by Stephen King.
Starring Michael Cornelison, Dee Croxton, Brian Libby, Bob Brunson and George Russell.

Before he earned critical acclaim adapting Stephen King's material for the big screen with The Shawshank Redemption (1994), The Green Mile (1999) and The Mist (2007), Hungarian-American filmmaker Frank Darabont turned his hand to one of the King's short stories, The Woman in the Room, which had first been published in the author's 1978 collection Night Shift.

Securing the rights to the tale for $1 - thereby launching the concept of the 'Dollar Baby' - Darabont's thirty-minute adaptation went on to become a semi-finalist on the shortlist for the Best Live Action Short Film nominations at the Academy Awards and was later released on home-video in 1994 as part of a double-feature with Jeff Schiro's The Boogeyman (1982) entitled Nightshift Collection.

The Woman in the Room was produced by Gregory Melton - who would continue his association with Darabont as producer of The Majestic (2011), The Mist and The Walking Dead (2010) - and also featured cinematography by Juan Ruiz Anchía (Dying Young, 1991; Glengarry Glen Ross, 1992; and the upcoming Untitled Phil Spector Biopic starring Al Pacino).

The Woman in the Room: Part 1...


The Woman in the Room: Part 2...


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Short Film Showcase - Captain EO (1986)

Captain EO, 1986.



Directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

Written by Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas and Rusty Lemorande.

Starring Michael Jackson, Angelica Huston, Dick Shawn, Tony Cox, Debbie Lee Carrington and Gary DePew.



Created as a '4-D' Disney theme park attraction, Captain EO stars the King of Pop Michael Jackson as the eponymous spaceship captain, who sets off on a mission with his ragtag crew to deliver a gift to the Supreme Leader (Angelica Huston), a wicked queen on a dark and desolate world.



Produced at a cost of $30m and running at just seventeen minutes, the original 3D film was accompanied by physical 'in-theatre' effects such as lasers, smoke and starfields. Along with the involvement of director Francis Ford Coppola, executive producer George Lucas and editor Walter Murch , the film featured a musical score from two-time Academy Award-winner James Horner (Titanic), while the soundtrack also incorporated the Michael Jackson songs We Are Here to Change the World and Another Part of Me.



Captain EO ran at various Disney Parks between 1986 and 1998 before being reopened last year as a tribute to Jackson following his death in 2009.





Related:



The Man and His Dream: A Francis Ford Coppola Profile

A Legacy of His Own: A George Lucas Profile

Assembly Required: A Walter Murch Profile



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Short Film Showcase - Rats: A Sin City Yarn (2004)

Rats: A Sin City Yarn, 2004.



Directed by David Brocca.

Produced by Albert Brocca and David Brocca.

Starring James Peak, Alan Rackley and John LaMotta.



Based upon the final 'yarn' of Frank Miller’s 1996 Sin City graphic novel, Lost, Lonely and Lethal, Rats tells the story of an old Nazi war criminal living in filth and poverty; as he reflects on his past life, death comes knocking at his door and he must pay the price for his sins. Produced by Pitch Films and directed by David Brocca, Rats: A Sin City Yarn is a highly stylised short that manages to capture the distinctive visuals of Miller’s tales with stark, comic book panel-styled photography. The short was released in 2004 – a year before Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller’s Sin City feature film – and running at just 3 minutes in length, it’s certainly a must-watch for fans of Miller’s gritty, noir-soaked world.





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Movies... For Free! The Terror (1963)

Showcasing classic movies that have fallen out of copyright and are available freely from the public domain...





The Terror, 1963.



Directed by Roger Corman.

Starring Boris Karloff, Jack Nicholson, Sandra Knight, Dick Miller and Jonathan Haze.



Produced by B movie king Roger Corman and featuring uncredited direction from Dennis Jakob, Francis Ford Coppola, Monte Hellman, Jack Hill and star Jack Nicholson, The Terror is a low-budget period horror about a French soldier, Andre Duvalier (Nicholson), who meets a strange young woman, Helene (Sandra Knight), after washing up on a beach. When Helene disappears, Andre sets out to investigate and eventually comes upon the home of the reclusive Baron Von Leppe (Boris Karloff), where he discovers that the Baron has a dark secret and is haunted by the ghost of his wife Isla, who shares a remarkable resemblance with Helene.



As with many of Roger Corman's films, the sets used for The Terror were shared with a number of other films, including The Haunted Palace (1963) and The Raven (1963), the latter of which also starred Nicholson and Karloff. Corman shot his scenes just four days, while the remaining directors continued to work on the picture for nine months, making The Terror one of the longest productions of Corman's career.





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Related:



The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)



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Movies... For Free! Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome (1947)

Showcasing classic movies that have fallen out of copyright and are available freely from the public domain...


Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome a.k.a Dick Tracy's Amazing Adventure, 1947.

Directed by John Rawlins.
Starring Ralph Byrd, Anne Gwynne, Boris Karloff, Skelton Knaggs, Edward Ashley, June Clayworth, Lyle Latell, Tony Barrett, Jim Nolan, Joseph Crehan and Milton Parsons.

Ralph Byrd returns as Chester Gould's popular comic-book lawman in the fourth and final installment of RKO's Dick Tracy quadrilogy. Joining him as the villain of the piece is horror icon Boris Karloff, who stars as the corpse-like gangster Gruesome, leader of a criminal gang in possession of a nerve gas that freezes its victims and makes them appear dead. Lyle Latell returns as Tracy's assistant Pat Patton, becoming the only actor to appear in all four movies, while Joseph Crehan reprises the role of Chief Brandon and scream queen Anne Gwynne joins the cast as Tracy's love-interest Tess Trueheart.

Following the release of Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome, the character would next appear in animated form in 1961 with The Dick Tracy Show, a series of 5-minute cartoons that ran for a single season and produced 130 episodes. Meanwhile it would be an even longer wait before the detective returned to the big-screen, with Warren Beatty producing, directing and starring in 1990's Dick Tracy.


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Short Film Showcase - Destino (2003)

Destino, 2003.

Directed by Dominique Monfery.
Written by Salvador Dali, John Hench and Donald W. Ernst.

Destino is an animated short that first began as a collaboration between Walt Disney and Salvador Dali in 1945, with Dali and Disney artist John Hench working on storyboards and producing 15 seconds of animation before the project was put on hiatus due to the studio's financial concerns. The short was later discovered by Roy E. Disney during production of Fantasia 2000, and French animator Dominique Monfery was brought in to direct the short based on the original storyboards and using traditional hand drawn animation and CGI in addition to Hench's original footage.

Described by Disney as "a simple love story", Destino is a surreal and experimental work that features classic Dali imagery set to a haunting melody from the Mexican composer Armando Dominguez. The short premiered at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in 2003 and went on to pick up a number of festival awards. It also contended for the Best Animated Short Film Oscar at the 76th annual Academy Awards, losing out to the Australian claymation Harvie Krumpet.


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Short Film Showcase - Cashback (2004)

Cashback, 2004.

Written and Directed by Sean Ellis.
Starring Sean Biggerstaff, Emilia Fox, Stuary Goodwin, Michael Dixon and Michael Lambourne.

Cashback centres on an aspiring art student, Ben (Sean Biggerstaff), who spends his nights working the graveyard shift at his local 24 hour supermarket. While his co-workers all have their own methods of wasting time as the clock ticks down on their shift, Ben has his own unique technique for fending off boredom by imagining that time stands still, giving him the freedom to explore his creative side.

Although Cashback received some criticism towards its excessive nudity, the short went on to win 14 awards including Best Narrative Short at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival, while it was also nominated for the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film in March 2006, losing out to Martin McDonagh's Six Shooter. Cashback also went on to inspire the full-length feature of the same name, which premiered at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival before receiving theatrical runs in the UK and North America.


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Movies... For Free! Dick Tracy's Dilemma (1947)

Showcasing classic movies that have fallen out of copyright and are available freely from the public domain...


Dick Tracy's Dilemma a.k.a Mark of the Claw, 1947.

Directed by John Rawlins.
Starring Ralph Byrd, Kay Christopher, Lyle Latell, Jack Lambert, Ian Keith, Bernadene Hayes, Jimmy Conlin, William B. Davidson, Tony Barrett and Tom Keene.

After releasing two features with Morgan Conway as Chester Gould's celebrated police detective Dick Tracy, RKO bowed to exhibitor pressure and recast Conway with Ralph Byrd, the actor who had made his name as Tracy in four Republic serials between 1937 and 1941.

Dick Tracy's Dilemma sees the detective investigating a number of crimes - the theft of a fortune in furs, an insurance swindle and the obligatory murders - all of which he links to a hook-handed criminal known as The Claw. Returning to the cast for this third outing are Lyle Latell as Pat Patton and Ian Keith as Vitamin Flintheart, while Kay Christopher takes over from Anne Jeffreys as Tracy's girlfriend Tess Trueheart.


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Short Film Showcase - Knick Knack (1989)

Knick Knack, 1989.

Written and Directed by John Lasseter.
Original Music by Bobby McFerrin.

The final computer animated short produced by Pixar before the release of their debut feature Toy Story in 1995, Knick Knack revolves around a snowman, Knick, who finds himself trapped inside a snowglobe while the rest of the souvenirs on his shelf are enjoying a party in the sun. Desperate to join in the fun, Knick employs a number of methods to break free of his glass prison and eventually finds a means of escape, only for his plan to backfire on him.

Knick Knack was Pixar's first foray into 3D and premiered in this format at the 1988 SIGGRAPH Animation Show. It was later completely rebuilt for a 2D theatrical release alongside Finding Nemo, with this new version incorporating reduced breast sizes on two of its characters, the Miami bikini girl and the Atlantis mermaid. This updated version also enjoyed a theatrical 3D run in 2006 when it was attached to the 3D version of The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Knick Knack (2003 version):


Knick Knack (original version):


Related:

Animated Storytellers: A Pixar Animation Studios Profile
Short Film Showcase - The Adventures of Andre and Wally B.
Short Film Showcase - Luxo Jr.

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Short Film Showcase - Bottom of a Glass (2011)

Presenting short films from independent filmmakers...

Bottom of a Glass, 2011.

Produced, Directed, Shot and Edited by Xavier Neal-Burgin.
Co-Directed by Joe Will Field.
Assistant Director Rene Gromotka.
Starring Coryanne Gromotka and Rene Gromotka.

SYNOPSIS - In the blink of an eye our protagonist loses everything he's loved. With nothing to live for he fills his life with a collection of self-deprecation to fill the empty void. His life seems lost until someone comes along to remind life is worth living even after tragedy.

Bottom of a Glass is a student short from Xavier Burgin, a Film Production major at the University of Alabama, which adopts the rather unique approach of employing a puppet as its main character. Bottom of a Glass features some striking black and white cinematography and is a touching short that sensitively explores its themes of loss and grief. It was named Best Drama at the Campus MovieFest at UA as well as being a semi-finalist for the Rethink Possible Award, and has recently been accepted to the Short Film Corner at the Cannes Film Festival 2011.


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Movies... For Free! Dick Tracy vs. Cueball (1946)

Showcasing classic movies that have fallen out of copyright and are available freely from the public domain...


Dick Tracy vs. Cueball, 1946.

Directed by Gordon Douglas.
Starring Morgan Conway, Dick Wessel, Anne Jeffreys, Lyle Latell, Joseph Crehan, Ian Keith, Rita Corday, Douglas Walton and Jimmy Crane.

Morgan Conway makes his second and final appearance as Chester Gould's incorruptible police detective in Dick Tracy vs. Cueball, a sequel to 1945's Dick Tracy, Detective. This time Tracy finds himself on the trail of the murderous Cueball, an ex-con who kills a diamond thief and takes the loot for himself. Tracy plans to catch Cueball by allowing his girlfriend Tess Trueheart (the returning Anne Jeffrey's) to act as a buyer for the diamonds, only for Cueball to take her hostage as he vows to eliminate the hard-boiled lawman.

Stepping into the director's chair for this second feature adventure is Gordon Douglas, whose previous credits included the Academy Award-winning Our Gang short Bored of Education (1936) and Laurel and Hardy's final Hal Roach comedy Saps at Sea (1940). Douglas would go on to direct films such as the cult sci-fi Them! (1954), Elvis Presley musical Follow That Dream (1962) and crime dramas The Detective (1968) and They Call Me MISTER Tibbs! (1970), while RKO Radio Pictures' Dick Tracy series would continue for a further two installments released the following year.


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Short Film Showcase - Shooter (2009)

Presenting short films from independent filmmakers...

Shooter, 2009.

Directed by Ronnie B. Goodwin.
Starring Paul Hunter.
Written by Ronnie B. Goodwin and Paul Hunter.
Produced by Ronnie B. Goodwin and Basil Khalil.
Music by Gregor Narholz.

Shooter is a multi-award winning short from director Ronnie B. Goodwin about an ex-soldier (Paul Hunter) haunted by his experiences of conflict. Seeking solitude in the wilderness of the mountains, lochs and forests of Scotland, the shooter is torn between the images of the inhumanity of war that plague his imagination and the natural beauty that surrounds him. Running at just five minutes, Shooter does a fine job of conveying the protagonist's internal struggle to deliver a thought-provoking and emotive piece of filmmaking.

The film has enjoyed a successful run on the festival circuit these past two years, including 27 Official Selections (including the Cannes Short Film Corner, Palm Springs International Short Fest and the Edinburgh International Film Festival), 2 Jury Nominations and 4 International Awards, while it was also named Best in Festival at the Swansea Bay Film Festival in 2010. Shooter has also recently enjoyed its British TV premiere on the Sky Super Shorts Channel, and you can find out more about the film and Ronnie's upcoming projects at his official site.


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Short Film Showcase - Diary (2010)

Diary, 2010.

Directed by Tim Hetherington.

Earlier this week came the sad news that acclaimed British war photographer and documentary filmmaker Tim Hetherington was killed in a mortar attack while covering the ongoing conflict in Libya. Having spent much of the past decade in war zones such Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Afghanistan, Hetherington had contributed to the acclaimed documentaries Liberia: An Uncivil War and The Devil Came on Horseback before receiving an Oscar nomination for his work as co-director (alongside Sebastian Junger) of Restrepo (2010), the Grand Jury Prize winner at the Sundance Film Festival last year.

In tribute to Tim here is his most recent work, the short film Diary, described by the filmmaker as "a highly personal and experimental film that expresses the subjective experience of my work, and was made as an attempt to locate myself after ten years of reporting. It’s a kaleidoscope of images that link our western reality to the seemingly distant worlds we see in the media."


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Movies... For Free! Dick Tracy (1945)

Showcasing classic movies that have fallen out of copyright and are available freely from the public domain...


Dick Tracy a.k.a Dick Tracy, Detective, 1945.

Directed by William Berke.
Starring Morgan Conway, Anne Jeffreys, Mike Mazurki, Jane Greer, Lyle Latell, Joseph Crehan, Mickey Kuhn, Trevor Bardette, Morgan Wallace, Milton Parsons and William Halligan.

Chester Gould's hard-boiled police detective Dick Tracy had already graced the silver screen in four Republic serials between 1937 and 1941 before RKO Pictures delivered this first B-grade feature outing in 1945. Taking over from the serials' Ralph Byrd as the incorruptible title character is Morgan Conway, with Dick Tracy on the hunt for a serial killer known as 'Splitface', who is responsible for a series of brutal murders where the victims have been slashed to pieces.

Although Dick Tracy opts against a straight-forward recreation of the comic strip in favour of a noirish approach, it does feature a number of familiar faces such as Tess Trueheart (Anne Jeffreys), Junior (Mickey Kuhn), Chief Brandon (Joseph Crehan) and Pat Patton (Lyle Latell), and was followed by three sequels in 1946 and 1947.


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Short Film Showcase - We Were Once a Fairytale (2009)

We Were Once a Fairytale, 2009.

Written and Directed by Spike Jonze.
Starring Kanye West.

After first working together as co-directors on the music video for Flashing Lights in 2008, acclaimed filmmaker Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich) and Grammy Award-winning rap artist Kanye West next collaborated on the surreal 11-minute short We Were Once a Fairytale, which premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival back in June 2009 and was released online later that year.

Shot over two days in West Hollywood's Foxtail nightclub, West stars as himself - or rather an overly-inebriated, obnoxious and embarrassing version of himself - whose night takes a bizarre turn after vomiting rose petals in the club bathroom. Cutting into his stomach with a bowie knife, West empties the contents only to discover Henry, a rodent-like creature who is attached to the musician by an umbilical cord.


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Short Film Showcase - Factory Farmed (2008)

Factory Farmed, 2008.

Written and Directed by Gareth Edwards.
Starring Jacob Court and Allen Leach.

After spending the early part of his career supplying visual effects on documentaries such as Seven Wonders of the Industrial World (2003), Space Race (2005) and In The Shadow of The Moon (2007) and directing the BBC TV docudrama End Day (2005), British filmmaker Gareth Edwards went on to win SCI-FI-LONDON'S 48-Hour Film Challenge in 2008 with the five-minute short Factory Farmed. Written, shot and edited in just two days with a team of four, Factory Farmed is a superb technical achievement that fully demonstrates the director's impressive visual flair.

Edwards has since went on to continue his 'one-man' film revolution with the release of the lo-fi sci-fi Monsters last year, for which he received a BAFTA nomination for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer, losing out to Four Lions' Chris Morris. Edwards is now taking his talents to Hollywood where he is busy developing a big-budget Godzilla reboot for Legendary Pictures.


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Short Film Showcase - The Key to Reserva (2007)

The Key to Reserva, 2007.

Directed by Martin Scorsese.
Starring Simon Baker, Kelli O'Hara, Michael Stuhlbarg, Christopher Denham and Richard Easton.

Collaborating with screenwriter Ted Griffin (Ocean's Eleven, Matchstick Men) and long-time editor Thelma Schoonmaker, Martin Scorsese directed and starred in The Key to Reserva, a 10-minute short film which was created as a long-form commcercial for Spanish wine company Freixenet.

The film begins with Scorsese giving an interview about a supposedly unfinished three-page screenplay by Alfred Hitchcock which has recently been discovered. Scorsese intends to produce a screen version, faithfully recreating Hitchcock's style as a tribute to the legendary British director, with the remainder of the short then intercutting between the interview, the production stage and the final 'film-within-a-film', The Key to Reserva.

Joining Scorsese in the cast for the short are Simon Baker (The Killer Inside Me), Kelli O'Hara (Sex and the City 2), Michael Stuhlbarg (A Simple Man), Christopher Denham (Shutter Island) and Richard Easton (Revolutionary Road), along with appearances by Griffen and Schoonmaker as themselves.


For more on Martin Scorsese check out our latest filmmaker profile Understanding Scorsese.

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Short Film Showcase - Luxo Jr. (1986)

Luxo Jr., 1986.

Written and Directed by John Lasseter.

Luxo Jr. is the first short film produced by Pixar Animation Studios, which arrived in 1986 to coincide with their establishment as an independent entity following Steve Jobs' purchase of the Computer Graphics Group from George Lucas. Written and directed by John Lasseter (Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2 and Cars) as a demonstration of Pixar's technical capabilities, the two-and-a-half minute piece follows the antics of a small desk lamp, Luxo Jr., who would go on to become the company's unofficial corporate mascot.

Luxo Jr. premiered at the 1986 SIGGRAPH conference in Dallas, Texas, where it received a standing ovation from those in attendance. It was the first CG-animated film to receive an Oscar nomination (although it lost out to A Greek Tragedy for Best Animated Short Film at the 59th Academy Awards) and is credited with shifting opinion on the possibilities of computer animation within Hollywood. Luxo Jr. also enjoyed a theatrical run in 1999 when it played alongside Pixar's third feature, Toy Story 2.


Related:

Animated Storytellers: A Pixar Animation Studios Profile
Short Film Showcase - The Adventures of Andre and Wally B.

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Short Film Showcase - StreetFighter: Legacy (2010)

Presenting short films from independent filmmakers...

StreetFighter: Legacy, 2010.

Directed by Joey Ansah and Owen Trevor.
Written by Joey Ansah and Christian Howard.
Starring Jon Foo, Christian Howard and Joey Ansah.

It's fair to say live-action adaptations of Capcom's Street Fighter video game franchise have been utterly disappointing - first up was the Jean-Claude Van Damme monstrosity Street Fighter (1994) from writer-director Steven E. de Souza, followed by the equally appalling 2009 reboot Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. Step forward British filmmaker and actor Joey Ansah (The Bourne Ultimatum) who, driven by his love for the video game series, looked to rectify the situation with the highly impressive three-minute fan film StreetFighter: Legacy.

Working alongside co-director Owen Trevor (Top Gear) and a team that included producer Jacqueline Quella (Toolbox Murders) and executive producer Anthony Waye (the James Bond franchise), Ansah secured Capcom's blessing for the project, which faithfully recreates a showdown between fan favourites Ryu (Jon Foo) and Ken (Christian Howard). Having debuted the film online in May of this year to much success, Ansah is now hoping to nab the rights to develop an official live-action Street Fighter series.

For more on StreetFighter: Legacy, visit the offical website.


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