Oh, Toto

Our Man in Nirvana

At the risk of sounding ever so Austin Powers, Our Man in Nirvana is groovy, baby.  Created by Jan Koester it is set at the musical height of the nineteen sixties. John is a flower power rock and roll star at the height of his psychedelic fame and success.  Yet things don’t go quite to planned at a concert and John wakes up in Nirvana.  Or at least, near the gates: first he has to face his wishes and deeds – what he did and what he might have done.

On the face of it that all sounds rather, well, well-intentioned but a little routine – but watch this as the animated short is full of surprises.  Our Man in Nirvana may be set forty years ago but it has very modern sensibilities when it comes to storytelling (not to mention humor). To begin with, it starts as a shadow puppet story but once John has slipped off his own particular mortal coil the film does a swift Wizard of Oz on us (you will see what I mean).  There are also a number of twists in this particular tale and the ending took me by surprise.

This is Jan Koester’s graduation film which he made at the Konrad Wolf Filmschool in Potsdam (Germany).  He is currently an animation director at the Talking Animals Animation Studio. 

The Green Ruby Pumpkin

We do have a few treats for you coming up closer to Halloween but we just couldn’t wait to bring you this seasonal offering from Miguel Ortega and Tran Ma. You might not believe this but the whole project was filmed in a living room (you can see the making of here).

As well as the wonderful quality of this short I did enjoy the different takes on some of our favorite fairy tale characters – the trio from The Wizard of Oz particularly - and there's a very pretty Little Red Riding Hood  too.

Yet ultimately they do not prove to be the trio of which our Halloween host should have been wary!

Dorothy - by Yunyu

What happens when fairy tales come and live in our modern universe and the two separate worlds collide? Which will be proven to be the fake? This is the question posed by singer Yunyu as her latest video shows Dorothy (yes, THE Dorothy) seemingly lost in space, a cosmonaut floating through the eternal abyss. Yet all is not, perhaps, quite as it seems.

If you haven’t heard of Yunyu, she is an Australian musician originally from Singapore. Her website describes her music as “an extract of Kate Bush, Isaac Asimov and Edgar Allan Poe — if they plonked their DNA in the Hadron Collider and it all got mashed up on a sub-atomic level” you would get Yunyu. How could we disagree? This video is a collaborative work with Yunyu, manga artist Queenie Chan and animation collective theCommonist.

Escape from Oz

Image Credit Flickr User Michael Connell

Photographer Michael Connell's model friend Eight had a great idea. How about some shots with the characters from the Wizard of Oz in a modern setting outside of Oz? Maybe the Wicked Witch would even behave herself and they could hang out at a bar, enjoying a friendly game of pool. The makeup artists and costume/jewelry designers did a fantastic job with the characters. From left to right you have the Wicked Witch, Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, Dorothy, and Scarecrow. Here, the Scarecrow kicks off the game. What a cool take on the characters!

1910 - A Great Year for Movies

Yes, it most certainly was.  Many people would not associate 1910 with films at all, let alone two beauties which even one hundred years later can make you sit up and pay attention.  Production standards have changed somewhat, but the two movies featured here are remarkable for their age – and for their chosen subject matter.
  
The first is Edison Studio’s Frankenstein, the first cinematic adaptation of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel.  Some people say that Thomas Edison was in fact the producer of this piece (the quality of which improves considerably half way through) but he had no part in the day to day running of the studio – it simply bore his name.

All movies made before 1922 in the US are now in the public domain so there are no laws being broken by watching it here in its entirety!  In fact we are lucky enough to be celebrating its centenary – for many years the film was thought to be lost. 

In the 50s a film buff, Alois F Dettlaff bought a copy from his mother-in-law and had no idea of its value for many years. In the sixties a summary of the plot resurfaced in a 1910 Edison film catalogue and Dettlaff drew attention to the existence of his copy only in the 70s.  Thanks to him we can now see the movie in its entirety – as I said before, be patient, the quality improves.



Frank L Baum did not have to wait as long as Mary Shelley for an adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz but when it came ten years after the publication of the novel it was done without any input from the author.  It was made by the fantastically named Selig Polyscope Company.

The film starts with Dorothy being chased in to a field by the mule Hank where she sees the farm;s scarecrow come to life.  Then the cyclone appears and takes the pair along with Tota and Imogene the cow (uh huh) to Oz.  They meet the characters of Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion as well as Eureka the Kitten (uh huh #2).  The wicked witch’s army are flying lizards here, unlike the Garland version where they are monkeys.

One hundred years on we have no firm idea who was in the cast or even who directed it.  It is thought that Dorothy could be Bebe Daniels but no actors are credited on the film.  It is unlikely now that they will be ever identified.



However, the centenary of both films show that 1910 was a vintage year for movies, in more ways than one.