Animated short "Seventeen" on piratebay.org

[hisko]

Thank you Sierra and ZigOtto!
We are lucky that we have a profession that allows us to 'make music'. It makes life so much richer.

2012 for Junkyard, why not. I would like to finish it in 2010, but I'm affraid that it's too optimistic. Why hurry, I rather make a few films in my life that I'm proud of than loads of films that I can't watch after I finished them. But it is frustrating at times, that slow pace.

[Paul Fierlinger]

Why hurry, I rather make a few films in my life that I'm proud of than loads of films that I can't watch after I finished them.

By making loads of films I can't stand watching I am continuously improving my drawing and animation skills. Dissatisfaction with my own work is very beneficial that way. I dread the day I will look at a film of mine with complete satisfaction because then there will be nothing left for me to do.

[hisko]

Why hurry, I rather make a few films in my life that I'm proud of than loads of films that I can't watch after I finished them.

By making loads of films I can't stand watching I am continuously improving my drawing and animation skills. Dissatisfaction with my own work is very beneficial that way. I dread the day I will look at a film of mine with complete satisfaction because then there will be nothing left for me to do.

Generally speaking no artwork is flawless. I can't think of any artwork that is 'perfect'. Do you?
But when an artwork communicates or touches me, that compensates for the flaws.
When I see Seventeen again, I can see lots of flaws and things that I would do better now, but the overall feeling of the film still works for me, and there is enough in it that I can enjoy. My skills didn't improve so much that I can't watch it anymore, but maybe in 5 years that moment will come.
I hate to see flaws in Seventeen that were the result of laziness or timepressure. That's why I decided to take as much time as possible for my new film Junkyard. You know what Milos Forman said: 'God is in the details'.

[Paul Fierlinger]

You know what Milos Forman said: 'God is in the details'.

I never heard that one and I like it -- easy to remember too.
Of course no one will ever make anything that comes out perfect so I'm not worried about becoming idle. The whole core of the art of 2D animation is in its myriad of small imperfections. 3D animation bores many of us because of its machine like perfection.

[Klaus Hoefs]

Hisko, now I have seen your film.

The first shots (bird's view, the motion of the car...) looked very promising to me. I liked the quality of your paintings.

But then what followed was disappointing (imo!). For my taste the story is too light weighted. The story of the young victim of the brutal grown-ups-world is too simplified on both sides and it looks to me as a phrase for the masses.
The young man is an outsider but there must be more reasons in that character than only to be young and to be unexperienced in life and roofer handicraft (dropping in the nails).
Same for the other characters, sorry, again I am missing personality for them (women, roofers ...). It's pretty clear that one has to work with shortcuts in characterization for some of the human types - but I think not for the main characters for this kind of film. So it is a bit black and white like in a woodcut: good and bad, victim and offender.
Also I am not happy with the dream-sequences boosting this world into zombie and non-zombie.
Remembering myself at fifteen to seventeen working in a butchery real life was unspectacular, difficult and that way much harder.

[hisko]

Ha ha, you and Paul always remind me of the two old grumpy men form the muppetshow.

But of course I appreciate it that you took time to watch my film and think about it. The black and white approach has to do with the fact that it's really all point of view from the main character. When he wakes up at night on the fairground, in reality he is waking up in his own dream. And fear in dreams can manifest itself as zombies, prostitutes and moths.
Life as a construction worker certainly wasn't boring for me, and the things that really happened on the roof were too tasteless to use in my film.

[Klaus Hoefs]

But they both were entertaining, well-orchestrated and sophisticated characters. (And they always were right. )

[hisko]

(And they always were right. )

True. But if they got their way, there would be no muppetshow.

[Paul Fierlinger]

Tell me how you see us as Grumpy. I thought I was being straight, forthright, honest, even helpful -- but grumpy? How do people learn anything from those ra-ra clubs on other forums (and here too, actually)? No matter what goes up the flagpole, everyone salutes.

[hisko]

Do you actually know the grumpy men from the muppetshow? They are very funny and sharp, so why are you complaining......?

You are not grumpy at all, but you tend to be very hard towards very young animators and beginners. It can be helpful, but not if you discourage people. The other way where everyone is complementing each other all the time is not very helpful too, I agree.
I love compliments, though.

[Paul Fierlinger]

Good for you ! Nice answer. I am aware of my hardness at times but I thought I had corrected that. I'll keep a hard eye on myself.

[hisko]

And a nice answer from you to my answer. I think you are very good in answering. Pat yourself on the shoulder!!

It must be hard for you to live in a country where so many people are dishonest. At least, that was my impression when I was at the Telluride festival in Colorado.

[Paul Fierlinger]

Cut it out! I don't take compliments too well.

[hisko]

I like your films.

[hisko]

Hisko, now I have seen your film.

So it is a bit black and white like in a woodcut: good and bad, victim and offender.\

I think I already tried to defend my beautiful film, but after reading this again I felt the urge to try it again.

I don't believe that universal good and bad do exist. There are no punishments and rewards from above or from below, there is no God. There are only feelings of guild and empathy caused by the neurons in our brains that mirror everything we observe with our senses (amongst many other biochemical processes). The biblical morals like 'treat others like you would be treated yourself' are just evolutionairy principles within the own species.
We feel love and hate and dozens of other things, but our sense of good and bad is really a matter of perception.
I'm sure that the people that flew the plains into the twintowers had a really different set of morals than I do, and a mechanism (called cognitive dissonance) to rationalise or 'religionise' their destructive act. This doesn't mean that they are to be forgiven, but just that there were causes other than just the abstraction called "'evil', which is really only a word that describes our 'feeling' and perception of that act.
The biggest part of this film "Seventeen" is clearly presented as a trip, a dream that visualises the fear and sexual anxieties of a young construction worker. In the perception of the boy he is a victim, and his collegues are 'evil', or at least hostile.

And talking about stereotypes, I checked everything.
I doubted if the asscracks of the constructionworkers were only cliches so I went out to find one. I did two steps out of my door, and I looked right into hell. There was a housepainter bending over, showing me his inside. Constructionworkers yelling at ladies, fact or fiction? Check it out yourself.

I think that criticism can be useful, but I also think that critics sometimes forget that most options are thought of in advance by the artist. The decisions that I made were based on the fact that it's a short film, without words (for practical purposes).
And it's hard to be really subtile without being vague.
Nobody is able to watch a film objectively (what you described as ''i.m.o.'), critics also look through heavily colored glasses. Taste, experience and even your food and drinks can determine the way you receive a film. It's a matter of personal perception, always.