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We are the Strange
Jul. 27th, 2008 02:02 amOkay, so I just watched We are the Strange. Most people probably haven't heard of it, but it's a full-length animated movie made primarily by one guy in his apartment. And it's definitely strange; probably the most unconventional movie ever shown at Sundance, and probably the only movie with a commercial video release to ever use Mario Paint as an animation tool.
I suppose in short, I'd say that as an experiment in mixed media video it's pretty amazing, but as a movie any sort of traditional sense, it pretty much fails. There's a simple battle of good and evil, but I'd hardly be able to call it a plot. The dialogue was awful. I'm pretty sure it wasn't supposed to really be about those things though.
The number of different materials that make it in there, and the composite layers of.... stuff is rather staggering. As some other people have said, I think the extras and the movie with the commentary track are actually more interesting than the final work itself, in terms of what went it to it, and finding the little details, and the inspiration for things.
There's also some crazy amount of influence from many things Japanese- some more obvious than others. Surprisingly, despite the director calling it a work of 'str8nime' (strange + 8 bit + anime) there was definitely a lot of strange, and a whole lot of 8-bit, but it's sorta hard to tell where he got the 'anime' from. From the commentary it seems that while many elements were inspired by various anime scenes (he mentions Outlaw Star and Ninja Scroll in the first few minutes) I really think those references might only make sense to him.
Being a fan of chiptunes, the music is really freaking awesome, as well as the sound effects (though I was disappointed at the lack of a surround mix, it would have really aided the ambience in some parts). Definitely the first time I've ever heard traditional Japanese-ish sounds combined with chiptune sounds combined with industrial-ish distorted synthy stuff at the same time. And it managed to sound good (that was only for one scene).
All in all, I think with a little more... external direction, and maybe a writer, I think he could really make something significant. Just needs a little more focus. On second thought, maybe more than a little.
Sleep time.
I suppose in short, I'd say that as an experiment in mixed media video it's pretty amazing, but as a movie any sort of traditional sense, it pretty much fails. There's a simple battle of good and evil, but I'd hardly be able to call it a plot. The dialogue was awful. I'm pretty sure it wasn't supposed to really be about those things though.
The number of different materials that make it in there, and the composite layers of.... stuff is rather staggering. As some other people have said, I think the extras and the movie with the commentary track are actually more interesting than the final work itself, in terms of what went it to it, and finding the little details, and the inspiration for things.
There's also some crazy amount of influence from many things Japanese- some more obvious than others. Surprisingly, despite the director calling it a work of 'str8nime' (strange + 8 bit + anime) there was definitely a lot of strange, and a whole lot of 8-bit, but it's sorta hard to tell where he got the 'anime' from. From the commentary it seems that while many elements were inspired by various anime scenes (he mentions Outlaw Star and Ninja Scroll in the first few minutes) I really think those references might only make sense to him.
Being a fan of chiptunes, the music is really freaking awesome, as well as the sound effects (though I was disappointed at the lack of a surround mix, it would have really aided the ambience in some parts). Definitely the first time I've ever heard traditional Japanese-ish sounds combined with chiptune sounds combined with industrial-ish distorted synthy stuff at the same time. And it managed to sound good (that was only for one scene).
All in all, I think with a little more... external direction, and maybe a writer, I think he could really make something significant. Just needs a little more focus. On second thought, maybe more than a little.
Sleep time.
