Cinema on the Web Part Three

A short post about short films:

http://www.filminute.com/vote/index.php

I came across this site just today and was excited to find so many short films in one place. All of the films are about 1 minute in length or less and fall into different categories; I was really please to see one-minute documentaries, for example. AND, the viewers get to vote for their favorite until 30 September, 2006.

Watch the films (it should take less than a half hour) and vote!

Cinema on the Web Part Two

I have a few more sites to show you today.

This isn't film so much as a very clever and entertaining interactive Flash animation:

http://www.changar.com/archives/go.html

This is a new take on the animation following your mouse pointer - a crazy rabbit thinks it's a carrot and hijinx follow. I could play with this for hours.

Take the videogame, The Sims, and set it in a 1920s Hollywood movie studio. Hire actors, buy props and costumes, build sets. Then, give your users the ability to write and animate their own films with your software. Welcome to the wonderful, weird world of The Movies:

http://movies.lionhead.com/

Using the Sandbox utility, game addicts can create their own movies to trade with others. The official site of the game (the URL above) has several interesting, funny or just plain weird little videos, but you can often find them by Googling "machinima" (the term used for movies made using videogame engines). Another good example is a fairly good horror film called Dracula's Guest on this site:

http://www.candlelightstories.com/movies.asp

Cinema on the Web Part One

I was a terrible film student.

No, I should rephrase that. I was a terrible student film maker. I am an excellent student of film when it comes to writing, studying and thinking about film. If I could, I would go to the movies every night of the week (and I used to when I was in school). I love analyzing film and I love looking for the little details, the symbolism, use of color, the framing of scenes. But mostly, I just enjoy being told a story, which is probably why I did better as a screenwriter than as a cinematographer or director.

One of the millions of reasons I love the Internet so much now is the ability for indie and hobby film makers to find an audience for their films. I'm not talking about the boobs on YouTube lipsyncing to disco songs, but film makers crafting short films and animations. But I'm also not talking about Art here necessarily either, though I have found some very beautiful and thoughtful films, but something in between Amateur Crap and High Art Pretentiousness.

Whenever I find a great movie site on the Web, I bookmark it for future viewings. Sometimes I email it to friends but usually the URL just gets tucked away into a folder and forgotten. And that's a real shame, because these sites really deserve some attention.

First, let's look at one of my new favorites, Elevator Moods:

http://www.elevatormoods.com/

The site itself is clever, designed to look like an elevator control panel. It uses just enough Flash to make it interesting and interactive, but not so much to make it annoyingly slow. Each of the movies are very short, only about the average length of an elevator ride, and use either an actual surveillance camera or an inexpensive camera rigged in the same manner, an ingenious way to get around the limitations of cheap equipment and poor video quality. The stories aren't necessarily unique or particularly well-written, but have an endearing roughness.

Next, a very impressive animation:

http://blissful.leftchannel.com/

This very short, abstract movie is difficult to describe. Done in entirely in black and white, often in what appears as ink blots, cilia and/or silhouettes, it has a disturbing beauty. The animation technique by itself is amazing and smooth.