Showing posts with label Nick Park. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nick Park. Show all posts

Monday, 16 May 2011

Best UK Short Films

This week I have added a new page of the best short films from the UK to my short films website.


The first short film on the page is Sign Language by Stephen Fellows, which won the reed.co.uk short film competition and the Virgin Media Shorts competition in 2010. It is a subtle and very  likeable romantic comedy narrated by a 'board guy' - those guys standing on London's Oxford Street holding up signs - who spends his life making announcements but is too shy to talk to the co-worker that he fancies.


The next film is This Way Up by Adam Foulkes & Alan Smith (co-written by Christopher O'Reilly). I assumed it was American the first time I watched This Way Up. It shows just how good a short animation film can be even if you're not Pixar. Nominated for an Oscar in 2009, This Way Up sees two undertakers encounter a series of comical obstacles as they try to get their client to the graveyard in time. Events take a supernatural turn near towards the end with moments reminiscent of Disney's Skeleton Dance (hidden here).


The third films is Soft by Simon Ellis, which won the International Short Filmmaking Award at Sundance and was nominated for a BAFTA in 2008 with his great short film. Soft is the gritty story of a son and father tormented by a gang of youths, but with neither apparently being brave enough to fight back. Simon Ellis went on to make the feature film, Dogging: A Love Story, in 2009 but scored less success with this film.


The final film is Creature Comforts by Nick Park... visit the website to find out more!

Sunday, 30 January 2011

Oscar Winning Animations

This week I have added another page of Oscar winning animations to my short films website.


The first most noticeable addition is House On Little Cubes (aka Maison En Petits Cubes &Tsumiki No Ie) by Japenese animator Kunio Kato. House On LIttle Cubes won the Best Short Animation Oscar in 2009. It is a very touching story so have the tissues ready to wipe away the tears. As his Japanese town floods, an old man is forced to add levels onto his home. But when he drops his favourite pipe into the watery levels below, his scuba-diving search through his house prompts him to relive scenes from his life.


It could be considered the animated version of The Last 3 MInutes...


The fantastic Oscar winning animations, Chubbchubbs! and Father & Daughter were already there so the next addition is really Destino by Dominique Monfery.


Destino was started by Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali in 1945 for the Walt Disney company. The story was created by Dali, J. Hench and D. Ernst with the music composed by Mexican, Armando Domínguez. Destino is perhaps best known as a collision between the two very differnt artists, Dali and Walt Disney, but it was acutally completed in 2003 by French animator Dominique Monfery, who more commonly works on feature animations, and nominated in 2004. It is certainly more Daliesque than Disney.


The last addition is Creature Comforts by Nick Park. This Oscar animation was the first the wider world saw from Nick Park, who would go on to thrill us with his Wallace & Gromit series.