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!

Burlington, VT PSST!3 Screening – April 9, 2009 at 7pm at Merrill’s Roxy Theater. After Party to follow at JDK Design.

New Englanders, Quebecois and anyone in the area tomorrow night, please come to the Burlington, VT screening of PSST!3.

PSST!3 Film Screening
Thursday April 9, 2009 @ 7:00pm
$5.00 (Includes entrance to after party at JDK Design)
Merrill’s Roxy Theater
222 College St
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 864-474

Matchless Music and Tick Tick present, with support from Tag New Media, JDK Design, and the Magic Hat Brewing Company:

The Burlington, VT screening of PSST! 3: A Collaborative film series on Thursday April, 9th at 7:00pm at Merrill’s Roxy.

Tickets cost $5.00 and include entrance to the PSST! after party at JDK’s Exquisite Corpse gallery.

About PSST! 3

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. A mash-up of stories and characters from art-stealing rabbits, Victorian-era lady astronauts, and faceless scientists to violin-playing schoolgirls. The results of artists being given a platform for creative freedom and permission to create without strings attached.

“Each team pours their imagination into a temporal slice of an unimagined whole. They do it primarily because it’s fun. But they do it also to remind themselves–and their peers–of what can happen when our normal routines are upended for the sake of creativity and collaboration.” – Justin Cone, motionographer.com (from Exquisite Corpse, an essay for PSST! 3)

PSST! 3 made its World Premiere Screening in Los Angeles on February 25th at the Flux Screening Series at the Hammer Museum’s Billy Wilder Theatre. London, Atlanta, Seattle, Chicago, New Orleans and Berlin are also hosting screenings.

PSST! is organized and curated by Bran Dougherty-Johnson of Grow Design Work. Burlington resident Ben Jastatt, of Matchless Music, wrote music for one of the films.

PSST! 3 Press Contact:

Bran Dougherty-Johnson
PSST! Pass it on…
psst@psstpassiton.com
631 749 1469

Burlington Screening Press Contact:

Graham Keegan
Tick Tick
graham@ticktick.org
802 540 0088

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.