While at the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design, Yonny Zafrani discovered a new muse: his answering machine. This short film takes actual recorded calls and puts them through the blender of Zafrani’s playful mind.

Higher res videos available at No fat clips!

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Yonny Zafrani: Answering Machine

PauseNYC (presented by FITC) has put together a solid lineup of speakers for its inaugural event this November 10th and 11th at the BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center. The early bird registration price of $149 ($89 for students) ends on Friday, so hurry and get yours while you can!

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PauseNYC: November 10-11

Vincent Chai’s “World War” is an ambitious 3D short film created for his degree in 3D animation at the University Of Hertfordshire.

Vicent Chai’s site | More work from the University Of Hertfordshire

Via Fubiz

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Vincent Chai: World War

Vancouver Film School alumni and faculty teamed up to create Perfectthewayweare.ca, a website and visual essay attempting to bring some of Canada’s pressing social and political issues to the foreground as the 40th general elections approach on October 14th.

I’m not sure about the efficacy of the pitch-shifted parenthetical voiceover as an expository device, but I think the team did an admirable job working together to create a thoughtful project grounded in their shared reality. I’d love to see other schools creating joint projects between faculty and former (and current) students. It’s a wonderful way for both groups to learn from each other and stay fresh.

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VFS: Perfect the way we are

In Michael Langan’s “Doxology,” several whimsical vignettes tie together in a thoughtful stream of consciousness. Something about the cosmic tennis balls, floating carrot snacks, and poly-limbed hygiene frenzy make perfect sense together. His impressive senior thesis, created at RISD, won Best Undergraduate Film at the 2007 Ottawa Animation Festival and recently debuted online as the first episode of Cartoon Brew TV.

From Michael Langan:
“Doxology is inspired by the work of a slew of amazing filmmakers who have pushed technical and conceptual boundaries in their work. The films of Norman McLaren (Pixilation experiments, having fun), Zbigniew Rybczynski (”Tango“, compositing as art), Steven X. Arthur (”Vision Point” re-stabilization of images), and Jan Svankmajer (”Etcetera,” etc…) greatly influenced the creation of this film.”

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Michael Langan: Doxology

For the Visual Semiotics Workshop at Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan, Kineza (a.k.a. Poland-based design team Margaret Stabryn and Peter Korczynski) created these moody spec titles for a fictional film.

They did a beautiful job building ambiance and setting up the rough premises of a narrative through the props in the scene. The soundtrack is spot-on as well.

Oh, and notice the name of the private detectives on the office door? Fritz & Lang. Ha!

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Kineza: Film Noir

For this graduate thesis at SVA, Pota Tseng (currently at yU+co) took inspiration from a 1913 poem entitled The Gardener by Bengali artist and Brahmo spiritualist Rabindranath Tagore.

The short film is full of beautiful lighting and a painterly softness that befits its naturalistic themes. The mystical narrative is full of moments that give fleeting glimpses of transcendence instead of laying bare the truth after which the musk-deer hunts. This is probably related to the poem’s lines:

I seek what I cannot get,
I get
what I do not seek.

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Pota Tseng: “Musk”

I also love the well executed integration of these whimsical characters with the tilt-shift photography used for the German city they are invading. Well done.

credits requested

thanks for the tip Tim

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Characters Galore for Cartoon Forum

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K. Ulrich Schneider’s Simple Beauty

For his graduation project at the HIT School of Design in Israel, Amit Zakai mashed up the aesthetics of early cinema with poetic musings on matter and time in “A Micrometer From Here,” a short film that is as strange as it is entertaining.

I’m especially impressed by Amit’s knack for transitions. Each scene melts into the next with a surprising yet organic twist that’s hard to anticipate. The effect is pleasingly jarring—like those sudden shifts in time and place that sometimes happen in dreams.

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Amit Zakai: A Micrometer From Here