Snow Queens, Deadlines, and a Brief Vacation

I've got a very important deadline coming up, so this blog is taking a little nap until May 1st.

But before I abandon my pretty spinsters for a fortnight, I'd like to leave them with a little gift.

Last night at Light Industry I saw two beautiful short films: Michael Robinson's "All Through The Night" (2007) and Phil Solomon's "Rehearsals For Retirement" (2007). Solomon's piece takes fragments from Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas and creates a haunting shadow-narrative in which we follow a man through a misty dreamlike landscape. I've always been fascinated by video game animation, which I find frighteningly sophisticated, and appreciated that it has a certain beauty; Solomon's film explores its fullest potential. I'm not sure where the film is screening next but if you ever get a chance to see it, do. This article from CinemaScope does the work more justice and explains it much more cleverly than I can.

"All Through The Night" is a gorgeous 4 minutes featuring manipulated clips from Snezhnaya koroleva, the Russian animated version of The Snow Queen (1957), swirling snow, and Cyndi Lauper. There's an interview with the man in (again) CinemaScope wherein Robinson describes how "Romanticism’s linking of the natural world to spiritual exchange and transformation" partly inspired his use of clips from a story which features things changing into ice, and roses. Anyway .... I adore this story, I love what Robinson has done with the footage, and I loved the sound bridge at the end where the thrumming of a sped-up baseline merges deftly with the gentle sounds of Cyndi, singing sweetly as the world rights itself again. As it will do, at the end of a fairy tale.

See you on May Day.