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Despairing of Pixar

An anonymous reader writes "According to AnimWatch, Despair Inc :-( has released the short films of stop-motion animator Mark Osborne on DVD. They're available through Happy Product.com. MORE, the first stop action short film shot in IMAX format has been nominated for an Academy Award, won a Jury Prize at Sundance, appeared in a Kenna music video, and even appears in the Hotline documentation, but this looks like the first time it's ever been available on DVD. According to the filmmaker he hopes to fund future films by selling his old ones. This is the best short film I've ever seen, so all I can say is I'm glad it's finally getting a proper release. Isn't this how Pixar and Aardman got their starts?"

10 of 145 comments (clear)

  1. Not the first time MORE has been on DVD... by lcracker · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I picked MORE up on DVD two or three years ago. It was on a compilation of a bunch of indie shorts. I don't have it in front of me, but I believe it was volume 13 of something (utopia maybe?) and it definitely had a picture of a mushroom cloud on the cover.

  2. Exposure by Dracolytch · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hey Gang, I saw this short quite some time ago on the Sci-Fi show Exposure. If you're interested in shorts, I really recommend checking their site out. Even though they don't have More available for on-line play, they do have shorts like Prelude to Eden, and Protest.

    http://exposure.scifi.com

    ~D

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  3. Re:funding by fruey · · Score: 2, Interesting
    and began painting on the actual film, which took more time, and thus was able to make his funding last

    How is taking more time able to allow him to make his funding last?

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  4. Re:Pixar will be around by Free_Lard · · Score: 3, Interesting

    pixar makes pretty family films, yes, but there are other (independent) animators out there. i was very impressed with "The Cathedral", directed by Tomek Baginski which was included in Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt's Animation Show. there were a lot of great films in that show, most of them using stop motion or traditional animation, and most were at least as good as any pixar movie ive seen out there. Pixar may be profitableand have immense resources, but they are certainly not the only studio out there

    --
    --daniel

    pushing is the answer.
    pushing will protect you from the terrible secret of space.
  5. pixar in 1987 by jspectre · · Score: 5, Interesting

    i remember pixar demoing some of their medical imaging systems at princeton university back in 1987.. they sold some high-end unix-based servers to help generate graphics, the kind that are easily done on a PS1 these days. making movies wasn't even on their radar back then.

    didn't buy any of the servers, but they were pretty pictures (for the time).

    --

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  6. Re:Aardman by g_attrill · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There's a nice history on their website explaining everything.

    Gareth

  7. Re:Pixar will be around by Jbrecken · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Agreed, [DreamWorks] did a wonderful job. But as I mention a few posts down, no other studio can really claim to have a portfolio (for their type of work) of the caliber of Pixar. That is to say, they have multiple films that are of extremely high quality, both in technical aspects and in storytelling.


    As well as the aforementioned Shrek, Antz was a decent story, and had some incredible images. I'd say DreamWorks is in Pixar's league for CG films.
  8. Re:Forgotten studio? Not quite. by rekoil · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Has Don Bluth done ANYTHING that actually made someone money? Every film I've heard of him involved in seems to have disappeared onto the scrapheap of financial and critical mediocrity.

  9. anybody watch the documentary trailer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting
  10. Re:Forgotten studio? Not quite. by dw5000 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Has Don Bluth done ANYTHING that actually made someone money? Every film I've heard of him involved in seems to have disappeared onto the scrapheap of financial and critical mediocrity.

    Well, An American Tail made $47.8M domestically in 1986. Land Before Time grossed $82M globally on a budget of $12.3M; that was '89. And Secret of Nimh grossed on about that level, too.

    Since '89, though, I don't think anything he's done has broken even before it's been released on video. The problem with Titan A.E. is that it had that huge budget which included setting up the Arizona studio ($75M), meaning it would have need to gross at least $150M before video to even have a chance at breaking even. It got about 1/5 of that worldwide, though a little better than what his other post-Dogs films racked up. It's not all his fault, honestly; if Fox had a clue in its head it wouldn't have flushed $75M down the toilet to win a pissing match with Disney/Pixar.

    Since Titan A.E., Bluth's been attached to exactly ZERO projects. Can you say... done?