The Thomas Beale Cipher

This excellent short film was made by Andrew S. Allen, utilizing a form of rotoscoping that creates a flat paper cutout look. The story follows the strange and suspenseful activities of a Professor White who sets out to decode one of the famous Thomas Beale ciphers which supposedly reveals the location of an enormous stash of gold that has remained a secret since 1820.

The director is also a founding member of the Short of the Week web site which has more information about the film.

There’s screening and press information at ThomasBealeCipher.com.

The Fantastic Adventures of Cloudman

Look at this! Will you just trust me and watch this thing all the way through? It’s absolutely brilliant! It mixes techniques like they are child’s play! Stop-motion, hand-drawn, live action super 8, claymation, psychedelic explosions, fireworks exploding from the heads of alien attackers when they die, forest battles, miniature model sets! It’s incredible. It deals with mythical forces at battle. The director, Phoebe Parsons, has enormous talent and filmmaking know-how and is going be making very excellent films well into the future. Look out for this young filmmaker.

So this Cloudman is created when a pilot gets shots down and his blood mixes with a cloud.  That’s the gorgeous opening animation that sets our crazy story rolling.

This film is… well… I love to use a cliché, but it’s mind-bending! Super cool and totally far out!

This is one of my favorite films online I think. Spectacular.

There’s a PhoebeParsons.com.

Interplanetary Revolution – 1924 Soviet Animation

Paul Gallagher at Dangerous Minds posted this 1924 Russian propaganda masterpiece. It’s a wild, science fiction, abstract work of art that just keeps pumping out wondrous images, one after the other. I love the ragged edges and mix of photographs, hand-drawn animation and cutouts.