Pac-Man references aside, I really thought the sound was astounding. From the wiki: "McLaren created the soundtrack of the film by scratching the edge of the film, creating various blobs, lines, and triangles which the projector read as sound."
Perhaps I haven't explored enough experimental film, but I haven't really been introduced to that technique before. McLaren created an impressive soundtrack with no instruments; how cool is that?
What a wonderful short! Very inspirational for filmmaking, the sound was charming too.
Watching this i couldn't help thinking it's a shame that decades after and with more technology, places like Youtube never really lived up to producing lots more of this sort of creativity.
Norman McLaren's best known short film for which he won an Oscar. He implements a film style called pixelation, which uses live actors in stop motion. Curiously it won the award for best documentary short, which is peculiar since it clearly is not a documentary. Its about two men who live happily right next to each other without any problem. One day, a beautiful flower blooms directly in the center of them. They both are intoxicated by its aroma and want it all for themselves. They fight over sole ownership of the flower and quickly devolve into raging monsters. It is basically a thinly veiled condemnation of war. It was a strange mix of what the film was going for. On one hand it felt light and slapstick-like, but on the other hand things turn fairly dark.
One of the most memorable scenes however was really pretty impressive. Using stop-motion techniques, McLaren was able to make the men appear to levitate. This was accomplished by having the men jump and capturing them at their apex. The effect is unusual but it works. I'm not completely sold on the film effectiveness in its message, but it definitely does have a point, and it tells it in a very original way.
Interesting, and may I say sophisticated, use of stop motion animation with live actors. In addition to other comments, I found the way lighting was used valuable as well.
For example, in the fence-building sequence, notice how the shadow is hidden behind the fence so we aren't aware of the length of time it took to film this sequence. Also, at the end of the film, notice how shadows are now used to show the passage of time.
One of the things I love about short films is the frequent lack of dialog -
here we get the message with no spoken words, the only language needed is on the newspapers but even that is not necessary to the understanding of the film. (The same message could have been communicated with symbols, say "*>&" and "&>*", but what newspaper has a headline like that? Still, many viewers would understand the simple English phrases used.)
Cool short, and yes, the message is a bit of a sledgehammer, but given the early years of the Cold War, can't say that's surprising.
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Comments 1 - 11 of 11
lampadatriste
Watch it here: http://www.nfb.ca/film/neighbours_voisins/punjab551
Pac-Man references aside, I really thought the sound was astounding. From the wiki: "McLaren created the soundtrack of the film by scratching the edge of the film, creating various blobs, lines, and triangles which the projector read as sound."Perhaps I haven't explored enough experimental film, but I haven't really been introduced to that technique before. McLaren created an impressive soundtrack with no instruments; how cool is that?
moontopmountain
What a wonderful short! Very inspirational for filmmaking, the sound was charming too.Watching this i couldn't help thinking it's a shame that decades after and with more technology, places like Youtube never really lived up to producing lots more of this sort of creativity.
BlueVoid
Norman McLaren's best known short film for which he won an Oscar. He implements a film style called pixelation, which uses live actors in stop motion. Curiously it won the award for best documentary short, which is peculiar since it clearly is not a documentary. Its about two men who live happily right next to each other without any problem. One day, a beautiful flower blooms directly in the center of them. They both are intoxicated by its aroma and want it all for themselves. They fight over sole ownership of the flower and quickly devolve into raging monsters. It is basically a thinly veiled condemnation of war. It was a strange mix of what the film was going for. On one hand it felt light and slapstick-like, but on the other hand things turn fairly dark.One of the most memorable scenes however was really pretty impressive. Using stop-motion techniques, McLaren was able to make the men appear to levitate. This was accomplished by having the men jump and capturing them at their apex. The effect is unusual but it works. I'm not completely sold on the film effectiveness in its message, but it definitely does have a point, and it tells it in a very original way.
TreadwayNathan
"War would be certain without peace.""Peace would be certain without war."
Nice.
thebestpablorivera
So impressive! It boggles the mind to think how much time it must've taken to get this right.xianjiro
Interesting, and may I say sophisticated, use of stop motion animation with live actors. In addition to other comments, I found the way lighting was used valuable as well.One of the things I love about short films is the frequent lack of dialog -
Cool short, and yes, the message is a bit of a sledgehammer, but given the early years of the Cold War, can't say that's surprising.
EssexMutant
Great short.No doubt the remake would feature Alan Dale and Guy Pearce. (Boom boom.)
the3rdman
Awesome, even though the message is a little obvious. Did not know how McLaren did the sound, thanks punjab551. That is a bit mindblowing.sganeshkumar1989
Superb!!Emiam
Everybody's writing "Great" of many short films. Why??!!Then you should see many Swedish short films that are greater than this, which could be a bit more sophisticated.
5/10