Ivor the Engine - Episode 1

Now I was looking around wanting to see more shorts from Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin...and found this absolute gem.

Wonderful music by Vernon Elliott.

The animation is so very, very simple (though I hate to say somthing like that about somthing that's perfect) and effective...it's really a combination isn't it?...of outstanding sound, music, narration and story telling...but this to me is five star stuff.

Barclaycard Waterslide Ad - Extended 90secs Advert

Dont often like adverts (saying this, there are quite a lot of excellent five star adverts made each decade) but this one here I really like for some reason. Very nicely done indeed.

Lost Cargo

Lost Cargo [click here to view] directed by Pieter Engels and Efim Perlis brought out in 2006 is simply beautiful, beautiful stuff. I honestly dont know what to say other than if you love science fiction then click that link there...it can go to full screen too and stills looks really good.

The design work here on everything, and colour choices do it for me, but also the sound design and atmosphere throughout...heck, it's all great.

The Rocketeer - Nazi Propaganda Cartoon

Always loved this short little animation which can be found in the 1991 movie "The Rocketeer" directed by Joe Johnston. Now I don't know if Joe Johnston himself directed this or if it was handed over to somebody else to do...but it's a real lovely piece.

Jettison Your Loved Ones

Jettison Your Loved Ones directed by Ray Tintori in 2005 is one of these beautifully shot experimental / comedy / surreal shorts that really works. Or at least, it works for me...the shorts got a wonderful choice of music and first class editing / cinematography, really great stuff.

Animation - Verdi's La Traviata

This one is truly wonderful short film. Much Kudos to the people who made this, time lapse takes a lot patience but is so, so very worth it.

INTRODUCTION

Hi, I'm a independent animator/director...or well, wanabe director. For a short time now I've wanted to create a wee space on the internet to give praise and publicity to short films. I'm fairly new to watching them, and I feel that you really do have to go out of your way to hunt them down and see them. I honestly only really saw a few at college in my time there in 2003, ones that the people there had made...and then, I didn't really see anything else untill I took a intrest in it in 2007...I was very busy making my own short films. That may seem wrong as they say your meant to really study what you are doing by watching large amounts of well, your thing that you are doing.

I had however seen about 850 feature films, there was a period in my life which i would say was about from 1995 to 2000 where I really went film potty and I think this set me up to be a filmmaker.

It seems that short films only get seen by a very small group of people...many is the time you can say to somebody "did you see such and such" and many the time the answer is "no". I dont think for one minute that this blog will do a massive world wide altering things to fix this problem, but it should help a tiny little bit.

It's perhaps speculation and by no means a hard fact, but I just have a feeling that the people who see short films are 1) Short film filmmakers 2) Friends and family of those short film filmmakers 3) Feature film directors 4) Actors and actresses 5) Short Film Competitions 6) Students

I dont know if short films are put on in cinemas in the cities, but if they dont, then it's somthing that really should happen...which means, its not really peoples fault, it would be the ideal time to show short films to mass audiences just before feature films.