PROGRAM:
Friday Horror Marathon / 0’31”
Directors: Created circa 2003 for the long defunct and ill-conceived “Drive In Channel”. A blend of stop motion, live action and miniatures.
The Pyramid of Dr. Crete: Volumes 1, 2 & 3 / 3’18”
Directors: For over half a decade we created ads and animations for Canada’s sci-fi “Space Channel”. After a few years, the producer let us create four one minute short films – literally anything we wanted, as long as they ended with the channel logo. This is the first project where we wrote, built, animated & edited every frame.
L’Annee De L’Os / 6’56”
Directors: Originally conceived as a film for the Montreal theatre company Momentum, each chapter is named after a play they performed that year. The floating man at the end is not digital – it’s a guy named Eric who we put in a white suit, painted lines on, and hung from our ceiling.
Madame Tutli-Putli / 17’18”
Directors: The two questions about this film we are still asked: “How did you do the eyes?” and “What does the end mean?”.
Opening for Animator Festival / 0’29”
Directors: Our friends at the Animator Animation festival in Poznan Poland asked us to do the festival opening. Most of the puppet’s movements are based on footage of our (then) infant children.
Arcade Fire promo / 0’41”
Directors: The Arcade Fire asked us to make a short video intro to their Madison Square Garden concert, which was to be streamed live on Youtube. In this, more than anything else we’ve done, we really ripped off the Quay Brothers in some shots.
Higglety Pigglety Pop! / 23’31”
Directors: My god this was tough to make. For years we considered it a failure, but now appreciate its strangeness. Despite many setbacks, it was wonderful to work with Maurice Sendak and Meryl Streep, whose voice we recorded in a studio off Times Square in New York. She asked us to read the other character’s lines while she did hers, making it one of the greatest days we ever had.
We Drink Too Much / 0’45”
Directors: Part of the NFB’s Naked Island series. They asked us to make a short that was either political or honest. We chose honest.
Neighbourhoods Rise / 6’20”
Directors: Music video for the Montreal band Esmerine. Long song, no money, so for the first and only time we shot on twos. The entire video is footage of the band projected onto abstract puppets we built. We had to animate more than ten seconds a day, so it became a lesson in embracing imperfection.
Love Songs for Robots / 3’53”
Directors: Music video for Patrick Watson. We basically copied the Bauhaus ballet here. Tremendously fun to make. The dancer is Mistaya Hemingway, and that’s her son Theo in the robot suit.
The Chair of Tadeusz Kantor / 0’51”
Directors: Shot with a tiny laptop camera while staying at the home of Tadeusz Kantor, a (deceased) Polish artist who remains a huge influence on our work. We used his house, his chairs and property as the setting. Shot and edited in a day.
Happy Halloween / 1’02”
Directors: The original footage was for a VR test that sadly never happened, so we turned it into a Halloween message for the NFB.
South of Midnight / 1’42”
Directors: A very short film commissioned for the X-Box game “South of Midnight”. We translated all the developer’s CG assets into stop motion sets and puppets. A nice little challenge. Love to see stop-motion creeping into other mediums. It’s the only way we’re going to survive.
The Girl Who Cried Pearls / 17’11”
A testament to the magic of stop-motion animation. With handmade puppets, mesmerizing narration by Colm Feore and a haunting score by Patrick Watson, “The Girl Who Cried Pearls” is a timeless parable of desire, deception and the price of innocence.
