Short Animation Film

The Elevator Masterclass

Fictive Feature
Time for the elevator masterclass.
[Source – Unsplash]

It was not planned, the elevator masterclass, it just happened and then onwards became a ‘thing’, a trend, a mantra hailed by all the students of screenwriting.

Hmm! And what about the professors? They are not a fan, and naturally so, for elevators are too congested a place for a class. Many prefer taking the stairs ever since.

Any-Hooghly-who… this is what happened that fateful day.

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But first, please watch this Academy Award winning short animation film, Geri’s Game

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Professor A. R Pillai, cleaning his spectacles, enters the elevator when his students, Deva and Lata, come there rushing.

Sir, sir, sir!! – Lata

Sirrrr!! – Deva

They enter the elevator.

Sir, you said Geri’s Game pulled a masterstroke… crux of your 7-day workshop, sir… – Lata

How-how-how sir? – Deva

Well, think for yourself! Now, chess is a complicated game, more so when you’re playing against yourself, right? – A. R Pillai

The elevator door closes.

Sir, you mean this twist, that Geri is playing against himself… – Lata stops mid-way as Professor A. R Pillai, bespectacled, takes his ‘listen-to-me-now’ stance.

That too, the twist, but also the character, Geri, old chap, more of a caricature, he’s determined, hmm, to play chess, game of chess rules his mind, we see it, we stay with him, you noticed his expressions…? – A. R Pillai

Yes… his expressions! – Deva; gesticulates for emphasis.

Who’ll win, what is happening, what is at stake? Music roars, no not literally, it roars and raises the tension, yet it is lovely, the music, there’s conflict, Geri vs Geri, who’ll win, both are one, yet different, you noticed, one is sober, oldie-goldie types… – A.R Pillai

The one with spectacles, yeah. – Lata

Yes, and the other one is cunning, ‘hah-ha’ he laughs, confident… but a fool, the oldie-goldie fools him, tricks him… right? Ah-ha!! And what is at stake? Well, the beaming denture! Oldie-goldie’s smile, literally, and he wins it back. The end! – A. R Pillai

Right! And no dialogues… – Lata

Sir, because animation tends to… – Deva; his question delays itself on hearing the elevator’s ‘tung-tung’ sound.

The elevator door opens.

Nah! Forget that! See every story as a puzzle piece, if it is well-rounded, it’ll fit well, you know, the viewer senses it and takes it along. – Professor A. R Pillai.

He walks out and says without turning back, ‘Tomorrow, 9 am sharp!’

‘Yes sir, thank you sir’, say Deva and Lata still in the elevator.


Maybe in the rush to express it all (at times, simply to end the conversation) and in the eagerness to know the answers, all minds in the elevator tune-in to a common harmony.

‘Tung-tung-tong’ – comes a sound that interrupts the narrator.

‘What? Is it still… hello?’, says the narrator, then quickly adds, ‘umm, the elevator suddenly stopped working today… huh, seems like this masterclass will go on for a little longer.’

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Paper-Light-Lemon-Fresh Stories

Laymun – Short Film Analysis

Paper – light, white, bright,

Wrinkled, crumpled and creased,

Torn into pieces without a thought,

A kid’s fighter jet airborne, that

In raining season turns into a boat.

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Paper – how different are we from it?

Shape-shifters, cerebral fools,

Taking two crude steps

Forward, backward, learning, unlearning.

Our ephemeral paper-life folds

To build a castle with battlements

That burns on its own.

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Paper-life – light, white, bright,

Wrinkled, crumpled and creased.

*

The film’s official poster.
[Source – CatherineProwse.com]

Wars fought for peace have nothing to do with peace as in the very end the avaricious intentions and deceits also win along with the just, powerful ones. All this after crushing many innocent souls.

Yes, life is a cycle of chaos and calm, and we do evolve. We evolve because of the unsung kind-hearted simple folks continue to work no matter what.

Just like the protagonist in the short animation film titled Laymun (directed by Catherine Prowse and Hannah Quinn; original compositions and sound design by Kalle Jurvanen) who continues to revive the spirits of the Syrian public traumatized by the unending war; she gifts the residents in that area with lemon plants, trying to refresh and enliven their war-sick eyes.

The lemon’s yellowness and its leaves spunky greenness transforms the cracked walls into a brave embroidered piece and beautifies the broken windowsill.

Soon the war frenzy returns without any shame, aerial bombing the city, shattering the gardener’s nursery; she manages to escape.

Bowed but not defeated, she boards the bus that will take her maybe to a better place.

Seeing a little girl, who is sitting next to her, crying and clinging to her mother for comfort, the gardener takes out the only lemon that she had, scrapes off its skin and gives it to the little girl.

The sweet fresh smell of the lemon makes the little girl smile.

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Laymun” zest is vital for living.
Image by Yousz from Pixabay.

What a beautiful film this is! The gardener in her gentle manner wins over the war, albeit, she continues to struggle. She thus becomes the unsung kind-hearted hero who contributes in bringing change.

“We didn’t want to oversimplify the issues we were depicting in the film and offer a neat, unrealistic ending, but we wanted to offer a note of hope. We found the idea of a lemon seed being taken with the protagonist at the end offered the perfect balance of a possible new start for this character but also a sense of precariousness: would the one lemon left in her city have a chance to grow into something better, or would it perish?”

Catherine Prowse and Hannah Quinn.

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Paper boat, paper world, paper life.
[Source – Pixabay.]

Surely nothing could have highlighted the ephemeral human life better than the usage of paper animation/ cutout animation, quietly mocking the idea of wars, the profitable victory of one over the other… as if they are immortals.

The light-spirited-jumpy smell of any citrus fruit, its taste cheers up a sick one, especially one who has motion-sickness, this age-old remedy is known to all, it has travelled via the “oral culture” routes.

And so has the stories of bloody battles, clashes and bloodshed… we have learned from our mistakes, we have!

Let the paper-light-lemon-fresh stories carry the tales freely.


A Must Watch Short Film –

Laymun – A powerful example of the magic of storytelling.

Read Chelsea Lupkin’s review of Laymun here. Complement it with the true story of the last gardener of Aleppo that inspired the makers of Laymun here.


Check out another write-up on a short film titled One, Two, TREE here.


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One, Two, TREE

A Dedication
One Two Tree, a short animation film
directed by Yulia Aronova
.

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Gaily it began to tread,

Gaily it danced ahead,

Twirling through the rise,

Twirling beneath the white shine,

Rhythm in the advancing days,

Rhythm in the Junes and the Mays,

Forever a loving friend,

Forever a bestowing hand,

Warmth of the light so bright,

Warmth hidden in all its might,

Carrying gloriously the life,

Carrying till the last goodbye.

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Gaily I began to tread,

Gaily I danced ahead,

One two TREE.        

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Watch the teaser of this fantastic short animation film here.
Do so NOW!

Weekly Newsletter

A weekly dose of stories! Get the posts from the Chiming Stories in your inbox and read it when you can. Subscribe now, it is free!


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