Patriot - My New Animated Short, done in TVP

[RoyIddan]

Hi guys,

I recently finished work on a new independent animated short called Patriot, which I produced entirely in TVP. you can watch it here:

http://www.vimeo.com/2862398

[Klaus Hoefs]

Like it. Although the sequences are a little bit didactic (what's about a side-kick ?) for my taste I like the mood at all, your character design and the way you handle the end. Can you tell us sg about yourself ?

[Paul Fierlinger]

It's good. The premise of the story is a new one to me, which I understood only after reading the bylines under the player, which I did only after I had watched the movie, and just by watching it I didn't get it. But I understand why Klaus says the individual scenes are didactic -- I've seen all those elements in hundreds of anti-war animated films before (this is what happens to you if you let yourself grow old). You seem to be a well organized person which helps you carry things through to the end (Klaus, there is a lot about Roy on his well organized website).

A small thing, but it lingers: why real clouds? It was a bit of a distraction to me. There were many nice ideas in the editing. Do you work extensively on storyboards and then adhere to them, or do you improvise after working extensively with storyboards? I can't tell, but I am curious about this.

There is so much revealing to me about you on your website which makes me want to give you too much advice into the future but I'll control my urges and only say that I recognize much of my own development and growth stages browsing through those pages. You're ready to become your own personality now, so do it. ARGH!! I gave too much advice again .... sorry.

[RoyIddan]

It's good. The premise of the story is a new one to me, which I understood only after reading the bylines under the player, which I did only after I had watched the movie, and just by watching it I didn't get it. But I understand why Klaus says the individual scenes are didactic -- I've seen all those elements in hundreds of anti-war animated films before (this is what happens to you if you let yourself grow old). You seem to be a well organized person which helps you carry things through to the end (Klaus, there is a lot about Roy on his well organized website).

A small thing, but it lingers: why real clouds? It was a bit of a distraction to me. There were many nice ideas in the editing. Do you work extensively on storyboards and then adhere to them, or do you improvise after working extensively with storyboards? I can't tell, but I am curious about this.

There is so much revealing to me about you on your website which makes me want to give you too much advice into the future but I'll control my urges and only say that I recognize much of my own development and growth stages browsing through those pages. You're ready to become your own personality now, so do it. ARGH!! I gave too much advice again .... sorry.

Thank you Paul. I am glad the premise was new for you and now it isn't - its part of the intent of the film, its obvious to me that not everybody that is going to see the film has knowledge of this little nuance in history, but I think there is a lot to learn from it and its important. As far as the cliches - I have no excuse, I agree, but we can get away with cliches in animation more easily than in live action, thankfully. I am a very sarcastic person who usually deals with humor - so this wasn't easy for me either....

The real clouds are:
a. A little trick I picked up from John Dilworth when I worked for him, I kind of like it aesthetically.
b. Easier than painting sky. call me lazy if you want

As far as storyboarding, I am a strict storyboarder, and I adhered to them more or less. I find that storyboarding is the key to an efficient production process.

Lastly - as for advice - thank you so much, please don't judge this movie as a stage of my development - I did it for a grant, I would have preferred making a perverted, violent hilarious short with a lot of nudity and knives.
Also thank you for reminding me I need to update my website.... check out http://www.myspace.com/lezbo2000 as well if you haven't yet.

Cheers,
Roy

[Paul Fierlinger]

please don't judge this movie as a stage of my development - I did it for a grant,

Isn't that in itself a huge step?

I would have preferred making a perverted, violent hilarious short with a lot of nudity and knives.

When I escaped from Communist ruled Czechoslovakia and had to find work as fast as I could (first in Holland) I made a quick sample reel with a 16 mm Bolex which I carried with me out of the old country. I used water soluble magic markers on a ceramic tile to smudge my line drawings around under the camera; a sort of paperless first for me. The gags I made to impress my first commercial viewers were all hilarious and cynical and wonderfully dark; mainly drinking jokes about people with no legs, such as a guy on a wooden platform with tiny wheels gulps down a stein of beer... beat, beat... and the beer comes gushing out of his stumps.

At my first screening at TV Hillversum I was stunned by what I perceived as the apparent absolute lack of humor amongst the Dutch -- the room was very quite. Then, when the lights came back on, I instantly saw the problem. After the lights initially went out, a guy, who later turned out to be the chief, had rolled in on his wheelchair and sat in front of everyone else, glaring at me with an expression of utter disgust. Need I say he had no legs?

That was the day I became an adult (I was 31).

[slowtiger]

Ugh - great career moments, part 22 ...

[slowtiger]

OK, the film. Overall nice impression, good choice of colours, nice drawing style. Animation really restricted - about half of the shots are stills, it seems - but effective. Good choice of shots, good timing, not too long. I very much liked how you don't show the swastika as a whole (as any american film would have done, for sure), and how you did the lettering on the train station.

Odd and distracting: the clouds. And the music has 2 weak spots in the instrumentation: the claves-with-reverb don't fit into a story of 1944 because they're a cliché sound from the 80's. And the accordeon doesn't fit either, I just don't know with what to replace it. Maybe a simple flute with no reverb.

I'm a bit irritated by non-moving objects on a "wobbly" ground, like the cross on the flag, the medal on the body, the pistol on the hip - but that's just me, personally I'd do two drawings of tghose inanimate objects as well just to not let them stick out so much. The video doesn't allow me to nail it - did you use AABBAABB or some other pattern of repetition?

What I really don't like is the obvious "correctness" of the story. It's nothing new, it doesn't add to my knowledge of history, it doesn't express an individual ppoint of view or an interesting opinion. If you'd used a klezmer clarinette for the music this would've become very obvious - topping all clichés with another cliché. (Fortunately you didn't.)

This film could've been done in Germany easily because it would've got all grants immediately - guess why. It would've been just another of those pesky little films about a canonical subject with a canonical message - and doomed be the one who dares to criticise it. But in Israel the situation for sure is different. I've noticed quite a raise in good animation from there, so maybe they just need to do the stuff everybody has to do first before they can progress to more interesting subjects.

[RoyIddan]

Hi Slowtiger, thanks for the notes. Clearly the subject matter is canonical, I agree, I think I did approach it from a different angle, you know the Nazi isn' t ALL bad, etc. Plus I think this is a point in history that a lot of people don't know about and is always interesting : about how self-appointed patriots influence the world and how fragile this self appointed patriotism is. This film is an institutional film, funded by the government and I never intended for it to be subversive or too innovative, its a pretty simple story - and I think as that it works. I hope you think so as well.

Thanks again for your comments,

Roy.

[idragosani]

This was good, I liked it a lot. I haven't checked out your website yet but I am looking forward to it.

[Elodie]

Great animation. I like the coloured atmosphere and how you "tell" this story. ^^

[User 767]

I thought your "life Insurance" short worked better. Story flowed better, made more sense, and the twist at the end worked better. Even so, this one was fine, if a bit disjointed. I suppose the intended audience and display imposed some of that anyway.

I found Lezbo very funny. How time flies. I can't believe that it's already the 70's (again).

[Rik Jurriaans]

nice short i realy love your style,

if you make some thing in tv paint it is seems diffrent from the rest of the 2d animation produced in todays world, am i right? becouse packs like toon boom all seem soo licked and nice, but tv paint seems way more traditional like moving crayon drawings or water colour, like richard williams used to do and bill plympton, thats why i like working with tv paint! whos with me?

Rik

[Fabrice]

I'm with you

I would like to have Patriot in good quality in our online gallery !