Adventures in Motion

When you go to a music festival, you don't usually expect to end up attending an award winning short-film festival as well. However, that's exactly what happened to me this summer when I went to The Big Chill festival, hidden away in the hills amongst the lovely Malvern countryside. It is common for music festivals to have a cinema tent of some sort, but they usually just show a selection of the latest blockbusters; the kind of films that will keep the masses entertained, just in case several hundred bands, a handful of top comedians and a fairground (not to mention gallons upon gallons of alcohol) isn't enough to keep them occupied for a whole weekend.

At The Big Chill however, I was surprised, (not to mention delighted), to see that Onedotzero's 'Adventures in Motion' film festival was on the lineup. For anyone who is not already aware of Onedotzero (pronounced '1 dot 0'), you should be. They showcase and celebrate the best contemporary moving image work and encourage innovation across all forms of film and animation. Their annual film festival now tours the world, and this summer they brought it to a couple of music festivals for the first time.

At The Big Chill they showcased about a dozen different films, most of them being innovative music videos of one sort or another. All of the films were interesting to watch, and they kept the audience captivated for a good 80 minutes, but I've picked out a few that really stood out for me:



This first film, by Chris Milk, tells the story of a broken heart, which yes, has indeed been done countless times before, but this music video offers a rather unconventional take on the scenario. The clichéd 'ripping ones heart out' visual has been taken as a starting point and turned into something completely unexpected, and darkly humorous too. I can't quite decide if I find the film brilliant or just a little bit disturbing - decide for yourselves.



This film is brilliant. It's been knocking around on numerous music and design blogs for a while now, but if you've not seen it yet, I recommend you check it out. If you like typography or logos, this video should tick all the boxes. It's an "Insane collage of (seemingly) vintage eighties logos" designed by So Me and Machine Molle. And for the hardcore typography geeks out there, over at FontFeed they have identified all the typefaces used in the video.



Next up is Bjork's animated video for Wanderlust which you can view in 3D if you've got the necessary red/blue spectacles, or just in plain old two dimensions, over at the Encyclopedia Pictura website. The music video took nine months from conception to completion, and uses a style of animation unlike anything I've ever seen before. There's an interesting 'Making of' video with director Damijan Saccio over at Vimeo if you're interested in finding out more.



Finally, one of the films I enjoyed the most was Albert's Speech, a short comedy produced in conjunction with Onedotzero and commissioned by the BBC Film Network. It tells the tale of Albert, a nervous introvert, who is desperately trying to avoid having to stand up in front of 100 people to deliver the best man's speech at his friends wedding. The acting is combined with short segments of animation which support the story and provide an insight into Albert's thoughts, and they showcase a range of different styles from talented animators such as Jan Urbanowski, Mark Hough, Trunk and Peepshow. The film is 15 minutes long, but if you've got some time to spare, you can watch Albert's Speech here.

These are just some of my favourite films shown by Onedotzero during their slot at The Big Chill festival, but there were many more. Other notable examples include Better than Prince by Jonas + Francois, and Myriad Harbour, created by Fluorescent Hill.

Onedotzero have also just launched their 2009/10 Adventures in Motion tour at the BFI Southbank in London. I haven't been able to catch any of the films yet, but one which looks particularly interesting is Logorama by French animation team h5. Apparently, "Logorama features spectacular car chases, an intense hostage crisis and wild rampaging animals: created exclusively from hundreds of infamous brand logos". Intriguing.