Stash Roundup is a monthly, handpicked selection of the most story-centric projects from Stash DVD Magazine. All excerpts are reproduced with the expressed permission of Stash Media Inc. To buy Stash DVD collections or subscribe to the monthly DVD Magazine, click here. Copyright (c) 2009 Stash Media Inc. All rights reserved.

THE FRAY “HEARTLESS” - Music video

Sam Schoemann, EP at animation studio Titmouse in Hollywood: “The goal was to make sure the animators were able to tell the story without having to worry about how the animation will fit into the live action footage. Per our discussions with the director Hiro Murai, it was apparent we could approach most of the effects shots as if they were screen replacement shots. This gave the animators the most freedom to create without having to worry about matching the camera moves. Getting the tracking sorted out with the Mocha planar tracker really saved us a lot of headaches during production."

“Recreating the line quality of ink and chalk on their respective surfaces posed a different challenge. The line quality of Flash animation output is too clean to integrate well into the live footage. After a few tests, the solution was rather straight forward: using the Flash animation as an alpha mask on a texture plate we could create a line quality that achieved the subtle nature of ink on paper and chalk on a chalkboard.” Learn more at www.titmouse.net.

YOWIE AND THE MAGPIE - Short Film

Director Dylan White was a freelance director/animator/compositor in London when he got word his short film proposal (which he’d been kicking around for two years) was chosen for funding. “The digital Shorts scheme is an open brief to create a digital film in any genre. Writer Tim Telling and I were one of six films to get commissioned."

“Creatively, this was the first time I’d directed a narrative story with a voiceover, as opposed to music promos or motion graphic idents. Tim hadn’t written for animation before, his past experience being in the much more immediate world of sketch shows and standup comedy, so together this made the whole process an exciting step into the unknown for both of us."

“The main technical challenges were how to get the film made on time and on budget – same as ever. The folks at Nexus Productions provided us with desks, kit, and server space, which proved invaluable in producing the project at full HD in the short time we had to do it. I had a month or so to finalize all the boards, character design, backgrounds and overall feel and finish of the project. The animators then came on board for four weeks, so it was a pretty quick turnaround once it really began, not to mention a feverish fortnight of compositing."

Find out more at http://yowieandthemagpie.blogspot.com.

THE EXCHANGE - Short Film

Inspired by the paintings of 20th century abstract master Josef Albers, Baptiste Sola of Saint Ouen, France created this minimalist animated tale with an adapted albers design as the stylized urban backdrop. “The main creative challenge was to stylize movements and actions through simple visual and sound design,” says Sola, who assures us several more episodes are soon to follow. Schedule: “Three days to design the visuals, perfect the timing, and animate, with another seven days for the audio.”

LOOKING THRu THE B-SIDES - Short Film

With no set deadline and only the word “inspiration” as creative direction, FUEL TV’s long time collaborator Saiman Chow and his team at Golden Lucky set off to create an odessy of live-action, stop-motion and hand-drawn animation featuring a cast of over 60 characters. “When you’re given the chance to make a film with no set deadline, it’s hard to hold back,” says Golden Lucky’s Sean Dougherty. After six labor-intensive months of production, the short is finding the attention it deserves at animation festivals and on air. Learn more at www.golden-lucky.com.


LES VENTRES - Short film 15:22 

Philippe Grammaticopoulos created his own genre of stylish black and white dystopian filmmaking earlier this century with the short films Le Processus, Le Regulateur, his amnesty international spot which won a Gold Lion at Cannes in 2007. With this new film, Les Ventres, (the Bellies), Grammaticopoulos adds some chroma to his signature crosshatch shading and extends his stark geometric vision into a full 15-minute narrative.