Watch FANTASY FOOTBALL: A NERD’S TALE Audience FEEDBACK Video. Moderated by Matthew Toffolo:
FANTASY FOOTBALL: A NERD’S TALE, 2min, USA, Action/Comedy
Directed by Joe Wesley
Two nerds have the time of their life fighting for gridiron glory against a horde of orcs, barbarians, and ogres.
Director’s Statement:
Fantasy Football, A Nerd’s Tale is what I wish Fantasy Football really was. Instead of crunching numbers and stuffing stat sheets, how much more fun would it be leading your team of Elven warriors to bloody victory on the battlefield, hacking and slashing through a horde of orc and troll linemen for a touchdown?
Watch KARATE GIRL BRAWL Audience FEEDBACK Video. Moderated by Matthew Toffolo:
KARATE GIRL BRAWL, 10min, Canada, Action/Thriller
Directed by Andy Hourahine
The film follows Charli Hackmann, an 18-year-old girl with a talent for finding the fight. Her violent past has helped her realize that the only enemies of worth are her inner demons, personified in this short as the BOSS. Her outer toughness means nothing to Charli, her true character is who she is in the dark and that is yet to be galvanized.
Director’s Statement:
The real battle lies within.
As a writer/director, I am drawn to themes of self-awareness, mental illness, psychology, depression, addiction, self-medication, personal triumph and tragedy. This is why when I had the chance to expand on the first micro-film, Karate Girl STREETFIGHT, I was eager to add more story and depth to the characters.
The film follows Charli Hackmann, an 18-year-old girl with a talent for finding the fight. Her violent past has helped her realize that the only enemies of worth are her inner demons, personified in this short as the BOSS. Her outer toughness means nothing to Charli, her true character is who she is in the dark and that is yet to be galvanized.
Martial arts are a fascinating subject and I have been fortunate to study them in North America, Europe, Japan, and Okinawa. I truly feel they are misunderstood and often misrepresented in the mainstream media. Old masters will tell you that it has nothing to do with fighting and everything to do with living to your fullest. I hope our endeavors here can further that message.
Production brought together the resources of many talented local individuals and I was very pleased to see so many people committed to independent film. Thanks to diligent work in pre-production, principal photography was completed by a skeleton crew in various locations over multiple days. Depsite budget and time constraints, we were still able to make use of some innovative film tools and I was pleased with how everything came together in post-production.
I wish to thank everyone in the pre-screening process for their positive feedback which has shaped the final product for the better. As well, my sincere thanks to a great cast and crew for bringing this short story to life; especially the beautiful and talented Julia Hourahine who showed strength, maturity, and professionalism well beyond her years as she smiled through the punches, kicks, slams, yanks, and long night shoots.
Watch QUPID Audience FEEDBACK Video. Moderated by Matthew Toffolo:
QUPID, 10min, Australia, Action/Romance
Directed by JE Flood
Kidnapped victim Roo must escape a wannabe Cupid before she is injected with an untested love syrum.
Director’s Statement:
Human beings are sexual beings and when we repress this side of ourselves there are destructive consequences. But QUPID isn’t a literal exploration of the issue. It functions as a fable, a warning against the detrimental impact of sexual repression.
Quentin (Paul Wilson) represents heteronormative society attempting to control and direct sexuality as a sy- ringe wielding Cupid. His antithesis is Roo (Sally Dulson), the story’s hero, a woman who does not allow society to deny her sexuality, nor her sexuality de ne her.
The backdrop for Quentin’s kidnappings is rural Australia, a setting heavy with ideas of tradition and somehow xed within our national psyche, despite the majority of Australians living in urban areas.
Although Australia is considered progressive on LGBTQI issues, correctional centres still operate in the country. these institutions provide “reparative therapy” for those who are supposedly suffering unwanted same-sex attraction. it is this delusion, equating homosexuality to a curable ailment, which first sparked the idea for a short film.
The consequences of Quentin’s attempt to control and direct sexuality is worn by Dominic. He is no longer a man, just an embodiment of his sex and sexuality. He exists solely to dominate Roo, without an identity. He is a warning against the detrimental impact of sexual repression.
KNOCKED DOWN, Animation/Action, 3min, Spain
Directed by Pepe Gomez
A young boxer ponders about the world of boxing while fighting for the championship belt.
Director’s Statement:
There are three main goals I wanted to achieve to this film. First of all, I aimed to capture in a film some of my own experiences in the world of boxing. Secondly, I wanted to play with the black and white, the light and the darkness. My last goal was to explore the movement of the human body, especially in slow motion, and to experiment and discover new techniques to recreate slow motion in animation.
The whole idea behind this film is to offer the viewer a first person, immersive experience of a boxing fight, and everything we see is designed to achieve that: the close ups, the use of the light, the sound, the narration…. Everything tries to take us as close to the combat as possible, and even, at times, inside the mind of one of the boxers.
The story is actually quite simple, a young boxer fights for the title of champion, but during the fight he keeps thinking about how, despite like boxing, he is disgusted by the constant screaming of the fans, the useless advise of each coach, and all the charade that comes with every boxing fight. Then at some point he gets knocked down, and during the brief moment of his fall, which we experience in super slow motion, he ponders about if it is really worth it to fight so hard to get a belt.
The way the story is told defines the very structure of the film, which is divided in two parts. First, a succession of fast boxing scenes, with short, energetic thoughts. And a second part, after being knocked down, that happens all in slow motion, and the monologue goes much more quiet, relaxed and reflexive.
The design aspect is very straight forward, it was very important to being able to differentiate the boxers from each other, and I achieve that by making them very different in their faces, their bodies, and even the way they move, and their boxing styles. The rest of the characters are design to look realistic, but very static, to contrast to the fast, continuous movements of the boxers. The whole film is pure black and white, with influences of the noir and, of course, the Sin City graphic novels. This is a style I think fits pretty well with the general atmosphere of the movie, and it makes it easy to emphasize the crowd, or to isolate the two boxers when needed.
The sound is also very important to set the mood of the film, all the sounds made by the boxers were recorded in the Foley room: the breathing, the punches, the groans of pain… And they were combined with royalty free sounds used for the crowd, the cameras, etc. The sound, as the images, is design to bring us closer to what the main character is feeling, we hear his breathing when he is tired, we hear the constant screaming of the fans when he is annoyed by them… And then we also have a narration in voice over, which help us to understand not only what he is feeling, but also what is he thinking.
There is also two songs in the movie, one at the beginning, as part of the introduction of one of the boxers, and a second one, that will take the place of every other sound effect once the main character is knocked down, and will help to set this disorienting feeling as he falls in slow motion. The technical part was a very interesting process, particularly for the slow motion parts. I couldn’t find much of slow motion 2d animation to use as a reference. After much experimenting, the effect was achieve with a mixture of digital hand drawn in TV paint; and puppet tools and 3d cameras in after effects. All this gives the film a very unique style, and it helps to tell a story about boxing in a way it hasn’t been done before.