Sad hipsters

Today I passed by a hipster type couple that were sitting down in a public open space in the city. They were looking really sad. Her face was really sad, the mouth turned down as far as it could go. He was next to her with his arm around her, looking comical with his thick rimmed spectacles, and neatly trimmed beard. Their rather sad state made me wonder what on Earth these two people could be sad about. My mind started ticking over and I thought it could be an idea for a very short animation. The first idea that came to mind was that in the big dramatic dialogue full of sadness, we eventually discover that the cause of their sadness is that a thread has come loose on the guys funky scarf.

French Roast - animated short

Continuing on with the theme of animated shorts with little or no dialogue, below is an animated short called 'French Roast'.
It is in french and has only minimum dialogue. I was able to follow the dialogue quite easily even though it is in French. This is another example of a film being done very well visually, so that little or no dialogue is required to move the story along.
I did think that the ending was a little predictable, which is a shame.
I found the character and set design very appealing. The use of only one location is a good way to economically produce a short, and that worked quite well here.
My only criticism was the reasonably predictable ending.

French Roast from Piokaz on Vimeo.

Guerilla warfare

I had a dream last night that I was on a train home, and word had spread that a guerilla group was going to kill all white people on the streets that night. White people on the train were working out strategies on what to do once they alighted from the train. All other races and species of humanoids were not concerned at all as they weren't affected. The world was populated with many types of living creatures, not just humans.
Some people were going to go to the cinema as they thought it would be a cool place to hide out. I had a handgun, so thought the cinema idea was stupid, and I was going to make a run for it from the train station to my house.
I woke up just after I alighted from the train, so my subconscious has left the climax to the story for my conscious mind to figure out.

The outsider

This is a story I had an idea about a few weeks ago, but sat on it as I didn't have an idea for its expansion.
Here's the original idea.

An outsider wears a costume to fit in with a crowd (an example would be a boy wearing a robot costume) who then gets attention from a robot. He needs to try to live the lie and pretend he is a robot.

At this stage it's a pretty basic idea, and I was struggling to come up with a story to attached the idea to.

Aliens amongst us 2

I posted an idea for a story about aliens amongst us yesterday and have refined it a little.
For a short story I would start with the Chief Executive Officers of a couple of large fossil fuel companies ie a coal company and an oil company separately do press conferences announcing government backed increase in mining / oil drilling. These CEOs would then go backstage and into their chambers where their human skin would be removed and their true form revealed.
It would cut to them in conference with an alien fleet of spaceships on their way to Earth.
They would talk about another colleague working on causing a meltdown at a nuclear power plant.
The massive destruction of the Earth's natural resources will change the atmosphere and in turn, make it suitable for this alien race to make their home after their own planet was destroyed in a galactic war.
There's still a lot to work on to make this work, but I think it's something I can develop further.

Aliens amongst us.

In this story, all the Oil, Coal and other fossil fuel companies are ruled by aliens, as well as nuclear technology. These aliens own the companies and pay off the governments. Their goal is to rid the earth of all its fossil fuels, and to cause nuclear meltdowns which will put radiation into the atmosphere.
The aliens are working at turning the earth into the kind of planet that they require to populate the earth with their people.
A small number of these aliens arrived on Earth a number of years ago scouting ahead of their fleet, and found Earth a good candidate to populate, and using alien skills infiltrated these companies.
They can live here now but can only be exposed to our atmosphere in short bursts, and have secret chambers where they spend most of their days.
The alien fleet is on its way to Earth after a galactic war destroyed their home planet. The alien plan is to have Earth inhabitable by the time the fleet arrives.
This is a pretty rough first idea. It needs a lot more thought, but it is something I think could be expanded upon

Alma - cute little short

I really enjoyed this short. The design and lighting was very well done, and an interesting little story. I liked how the whole story is set in just the one location, well, outside, then inside the shop. The doll on the trike was done really well, and rather creepy. The story did unfold the way I kind of thought it would, but it was entertaining nonetheless.

Alma from Rodrigo Blaas on Vimeo.

I am finding a lot of inspiration in these little shorts I have been watching.

Replay - short film

I really like a lot of post apocalyptic films, so i found this one quite interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-cFHeoXAw8&feature=player_embedded

It starts out with a flurry of action to hook you in, and you're immediately given a sense of the environment the woman and the boy live in. Some people have commented that the boy was stupid, or an idiot. My feeling is that the boy was lonely. You can feel his hallucination of the children playing was real to him. A sad story, but I think it was well done, and a good commentary on what our future could look like.