Take-Me-Away

I am a little surprised that Brisbane based filmmaker and digital artist Benjamin Zaugg didn’t simply call this Franken-Noodle but perhaps his own title has a little more class - and when you see the end of this animated short you will realize why he called it Take-Me-Away. From my own attempt at naming a piece of work which already has one, you may have already guessed what this is about.

A discarded half-eaten box of take-away noodles is brought to life and, as life does, immediately seeks to reproduce itself. Whether our noodly friend succeeds I will leave to you to discover. I was charmed by this piece which combines stop motion and puppetry. It also has a very catchy original score, Take-Me-Away, written and Composed by Ben Miles with vocals by Sam Jarousek. Two minutes of fun!

Salarymen

The working life – sometimes you can feel as if it is all about to overwhelm you.  So, when a dejected young salaryman stumbles over a noodle shop on his way home from work (in the rain of course!) he stops by for a little ramen.  If you are not sure what that is, it is a Japanese noodle dish.

It consists of Chinese-style wheat noodles served in a meat- or (occasionally) fish-based broth, often flavored with soy sauce or miso, and uses toppings such as sliced pork, dried seaweed, kamaboko, green onions, and occasionally corn. Or at least that’s what Wikipedia says about it. Well, the ramen certainly does the trick in this case.

This animation was made by Michael Chen, during his last year of a Media Arts Production degree at the University of Technology Sydney. He was inspired by his stay in the Japanese city of Sapporo where he befriended a ramen chef who made him feel just like the guy in his animation!