Short films shine on the silver screen

Thanks to Julia Wejchert of the Vermont Cynic for this article.

Short films shine on the silver screen
Collaborative film project brings animated shorts to the Roxy Theater

Julia Wejchert

Published: Monday, April 13, 2009

What do you get when you take over 100 people, mix their work together, add some sex, some murder and some electronic music?

Either a really strange murder mystery or PSST!3, a collaborative film project of 17 animated, short films.

An international film project organized by Brian Dougherty-Johnson, PSST!3 had a screening at the Roxy Theater in Burlington on April 9, presented by Matchless Music and Tick Tick.

Inspired by the children’s game telephone and “the Dadaist game of Exquisite Corpse” according to the PSST!3 Web site, PSST!3, which consists of animated short films, separates each film into three parts, with different teams of people making the beginning, middle and end.

PSST!3 is the third installment in Dougherty-Johnson’s PSST! film series.

The films that make up PSST!3 share a common method of creation, but differ greatly in tone and animation style.

The films’ topics range from gruesome to cute to conceptually complex: cuddly cartoon animals are killed in a forest, a woman’s dress takes on jet-pack abilities and one film even rhymes.

Each of the films that make up PSST!3 face the issue of cohesiveness, as the sections are often quite different. For the most part, they creatively succeed, using everything from time travel to stories-within-stories to do so.

With different animators drawing the scenes, PSST!3 showcases many different styles coming together to tell quirky, clever short stories.

Although a film made up of unrelated shorts is a bit strange, the films that make up PSST!3 are dynamic and intriguing. They easily retain viewers’ interest as they drift between alluring cartoon worlds.

The music in each film adds a nice compliment to the animation. Even if the stories can be a bit peculiar at times, this is an asset rather than a liability as animation is a medium that lends itself well to the abstract.

Ben Jastatt, who produced the music for one of the short films, became involved with the project through connections he made when working for Cartoon Network. A Burlington local, Jastatt arranged for the screening at the Roxy.

“I just thought it was a really great project, really unique,” Jastatt said. “It’s a huge worldwide collective project and I thought other people might want to be a part of it too.”

“All the screenings have been set up by people involved,” Jastatt said. With these people being from all over the world, there have been screenings of PSST!3 everywhere from Los Angeles to London to New York and even Lithuania.

Seeming more like moving art than the romantic comedy playing one theater over, PSST!3 rejects the idea that the purpose of film making is commercial success.

A quote from Walt Disney on the PSST!3 Web site reads “We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies” — focusing instead on interesting, quality work and creative freedom.

PSST!3 is an innovative and aesthetically pleasing project that takes a novel idea but manages not to let the idea overshadow the artistic work of the films.

Thanks to Everyone who came to last night’s PSST!3 screening

Thanks to everyone who came to the PSST!3 screening last night. Glad you made it out. Glad you enjoyed the films. Glad to be glad you’re glad. Go to the PSST!3 website for more info, to purchase DVD’s and to say thanks to the curator, Bran Dougherty-Johnson.

Special thanks to Tick Tick who helped with promotion and screen printing and JDK Design who were gracious enough to lend out their gallery for the after party.

Additional special thanks to our sponsors Tag New Media and Magic Hat Brewery for helping us pull off last night’s screening and after party.

And thanks to Merrill’s Roxy and Fluid Bar Service for theater and catering.

And one more thanks to Dan Bolles at 7 Days for the press.

Thanks Burlington!

Nice AJC article on the Atlanta PSST!3 Screening

MOVIE MOJO: Local team found fun, freedom in film collaboration

By Catherine Fox
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Friday, March 13, 2009

Way back in the 20th century, the surrealists played a parlor game they called exquisite corpse.

It went like this: One artist would draw part of a figure, cover it and pass the paper on to the next artist, who added to it, and so on.

The result was to be a work from their collective unconscious. Artists have enjoyed —- and invented new variations of —- this collaborative creative experience ever since.

In fact, you can see two examples in Atlanta now. Opal Gallery is exhibiting a series created by two photographers (see D9), and Wednesday the Plaza Theatre will screen “PSST 3,” a series of 17 short films made by 175 international participants.

Each film is three parts. Different teams of artists, directors, designers and animators —- randomly conjoined by the series founder —- work consecutively on the beginning, middle and end, with only a frame from the preceding work to go on.

The films, as you can see from the trailer (http://psstpassiton.com/?page_id=347), are a boisterous mix of styles and images. Clearly, everyone had fun.

Atlanta is represented by a group from Cartoon Network —- Calvin Florian, Vincent Aricco, Brian Smith —- and friends, including props person Alice Nisbet and her son Zane Gunderson. Former Atlantan Ben Jastatt provides the music. California illustrator Cole Gerst also contributed.

Their section, titled “S.E.A.R.C.H.” (Seeking Experimental Reality Causes Hallucinations), is a combination of animation and live-action film.

Zane, 10, plays a bored kid who invents a device to see the world differently. As he wanders around Atlanta, his heart-shaped invention transforms familiar scenes —- downtown, Freedom Park, an East Atlanta neighborhood —- into lively fantasies. The team spent 2 1/2 months, after work and on weekends, creating the 2 1/2-minute piece. And loved it.

“It was a chance to collaborate with friends and [exercise] creative freedom,” Florian says. “It was fun not knowing where it’s going.”

He will see the whole thing for the first time at the screening.

Florian also produced Gerst’s eco-themed, five-episode online animation series for the Sundance Channel, which will air this year.

“PSST 3.” 7:30 p.m. March 18. $5. Plaza Theater, 1049 Ponce de Leon Ave., Atlanta. 404-873-1939.

PSST!3 World Premiere in Los Angeles on Feb. 25th.

PSST!3 will have its World Premiere at the Flux Screening Series at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles on Feb. 25th. You can RSVP here.

From the Flux Press Release:

“Flux and the Hammer Museum present a quarterly screening series featuring innovative short films, music videos, features, filmmaker retrospectives and the most visual work from around the globe. Now in its second year, the Flux Screening Series will debut the World Premiere of PSST! 3, a collaborative new film project featuring shorts by a worldwide network of designers, directors, animators, and composers. PSST! founder and curator Bran Dougherty-Johnson will be in attendance to present the films. The evening will also include the Premiere of two N.A.S.A. videos from its highly-anticipated new release The Spirit of Apollo: “Gifted” featuring Kayne West, Santogold and Lykke Li, directed by Three Legged Legs and “A Volta”, directed by Logan in collaboration with The Date Farmers. The NASA videos were spearheaded by filmmaker Syd Garon who will be presenting the new works along with Casey Hunt, Greg Gunn and Reza Rasoli of Three Legged Legs and Alexei Tylevich of Logan. A courtyard after-party will follow the film screenings.

PSST! 3 is a brand-new series of 17 original collaborative short films made over the last year by over 175 participants in cities worldwide, including: New York, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, Atlanta, Nashville, London, Glasgow, Paris, Vilnius, Amsterdam, Berlin, Dublin, and Copenhagen.

The films are each made in three parts, with different teams working consecutively on the beginning, middle and end. Taking the inspiration for its process from the Surrealist technique of Exquisite Corpse and the children’s game of Telephone, the PSST! films bring together diverse Artists, Directors, Designers and Animators to combine their work in an experimental format that encourages creativity and rewards the sharing and mixing of ideas. The result is a glorious, chaotic mix of film-making and animation styles. Notable directors include Orion Tait, Creative Director of Buck; the late Gideon Baws and Chris Harding of Shynola; Lorenzo Fonda, director of Megunica; and Cole Gerst, winner of the Sundance’s 2007 Greenimation competition. Following its Los Angeles premiere, PSST! 3 will screen in New York, London, Atlanta, Seattle and Berlin.”

PSST! Pass It On 3

Matchless artist and founder, Ben Jastatt was lucky enough to write some music for one of the short films featured in PSST! Pass It On 3. We’ll have more details when the project is released later this month. For now, here’s the skinny on the project and a sneak peak…

PSST! 3 is a collaborative film project. 17 films are currently being made by 51 teams of Designers, Directors, Animators and Composers.

The mission of PSST is to produce original short films through the collaboration of different teams of designers, directors, and animators. Each film is comprised of three sections produced by three different teams. This process is the whole idea behind PSST! – a technique derived from the Dadaist game of Exquisite Corpse and the children’s game Telephone and applied to the arts of motion graphics, animation and film-making.

PSST! is curated and organized by Bran Dougherty-Johnson of Grow Design Work. For more info, contact PSST!: psst@psstpassiton.com.

Check out the PSST! Pass It On 3 trailer below. (The music for the trailer was not composed by a Matchless Musician, but by the extremely talented Balun.)

PSST! 3 Trailer

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