glitterfish.com

For most independent filmmakers the first step to success is getting your movie played at Sundance and other high profile film festivals. To do this you’ll need to catch the attention of the person who wades through the thousands of submitted films to program the festival.

Mike Plante is the Associate Director of Programming at CineVegas and publisher of Cinemad Magazine. He was a short film programmer at Sundance for the past four years and has worked for film festivals since 1993. He is older than he looks but still energetic.

He is also a really cool guy who was nice enough to answer a few questions for Glitterfish.

I noticed that this year a lot of the shorts at CineVegas were pretty long. BugCrush (Dir: Carter Smith) was 38 minutes long and that films a total hit at festivals. Voicemail (Dir: Michael Wilde) was funny even if its one joke premise got a little redundant at 19 minutes long. Is the conventional wisdom that short films should be short (10 minutes or less) really true?

We also showed “Bob Log III’s Electric Fence Story” and “A Protected Witness: Maxson v. Clarkson” which are each 2 minutes long, if that. Bill Brown’s “The Other Side” is 45 minutes, but his films are always very unique, zine-like documentaries. The reality is every year there are 9 or 10 amazing shorts from 20-30 minutes. Then there are 1,000 ones that fail, that should be cut in half or should be part of a feature film, or left in a closet.

What’s the difference between programming for CineVegas and programming for Sundance?

We can show anything we want at Sundance, but there is definitely a more serious tone in picking films there. At CineVegas you can show something that is more rough cut-ish. That said, we showed “Bugcrush” and the Bob Log short at both fests.

Does it matter if I put my short film on the internet before I submit to festivals?

Unfortunately, yes. Some fests think that overplays the short. They are wrong. The viewing experience is totally different, and really – do you think by putting your short on You Tube everyone is gonna see it?? Shorts need all the help they can get. At Sundance we do have a rule that it can’t be on the internet after we select it, but we put many of the shorts on the Sundance website to maximize the exposure for your film.

I know that festivals compete for world premieres. Do I need to worry about where my short film premieres?

When it comes to shorts, Sundance does not care if your film has screened before. We do need it to be less than a year old or so, with a few exceptions. If it comes down to two films fighting for the last spot, we would consider how new each film is as one of multiple factors. As a filmmaker I would not play each and every festival known to man before trying to get into Sundance, Toronto, Telluride, Tribeca, Cannes, Berlin, etc. All of the big fests have different rules, look into them. Then all the medium and small sized fests can still show your film after that.

Can you give us some examples of effective or creative marketing that you have seen at festivals?

The best thing I’ve seen is filmmakers just engaging people that come to the shows, whether after a shorts program or while waiting in a lobby or a ticket line or reception. Not in a cliché producer way, that never works. But more of a “Hi, I’m a human being, you’re a human being, we’re all here to have fun and I made a little film. Wanna see it?” So have postcards of your film with a cool image and the screening times, and a handful of DVDs to swap with other filmmakers, producers, actors, or cool people you run into. Even if you run into a filmmaker you really admire by chance (I was in a line to get coffee with Peter O’Toole, Salmon Rushdie and Terry Gilliam - very surreal) they might be cool and take a DVD. Just treat them nicely like your Mom taught you to.

At the Puffy Chair screening the Duplass Brothers personally credited you and Trevor Groth for launching their careers. It must be vindicating to over the years, have followed their short films and now see them with a successful feature. Maybe you should be a producer’s rep?

Does that job include free chocolate? The Duplass Bros are very kind for saying that and we have helped them every way we can, but they are the ones that actually made the kickass films.

I made a short film that I think is ok but probably not good enough to play at Sundance or CineVegas. What are some smaller festivals I should look at?

You should submit it to both Sundance and CineVegas. Of course there are no promises, but the biggest mistake everyone makes is assuming that it will or won’t get in somewhere. We turned down tons of documentaries about playing poker at CineVegas. That’s on TV every minute of the day. One short, “Choked” by Todd and Brad Barnes, played Sundance, CineVegas and Clairmont-Ferrand (an incredible short film fest in France) and everywhere else rejected it. Crazy. Also, the “Napoleon Dynamite” guys thought their short wasn’t good enough for Sundance so they didn’t even submit. I would’ve played it. But things seemed to work out for them in the end.

Do you use myspace or youtube? Do you read blogs? What do you think of withoutabox.com especially their new Audience section? Do you have any thoughts about the web in relation to filmmaking?

MySpace is great for me finding punk rock around the country, and I’m interested to see if it can help films too. I don’t spend much time on my own account at all. I read the occasional blog but more coz I don’t have tons of free time at the moment. YouTube is amazing. Its too much stuff but an incredible resource you can wade through. Without A Box seems to work for the smaller festivals, which is cool. I don’t know enough about the service but am investigating. The internet is great because you can reach an audience without succumbing to the world of distribution. But the internet is a crappy way to actually watch a film. I am waiting for a cheap way to connect the net to a projector so I can watch a film in good cinema quality 20 feet wide. Fingers crossed.

Is there anything else you think short filmmakers should know?

Never make a film just in order to get into festivals. You’ve got to “need” to tell a story rather than just want to be involved in the film world. And the ten-minute rule is a good one….

I want to thank Mike for answering our questions and also for putting on such a great festival.

DVGuru points to this excellent fastcompany.com article on how a couple of filmmakers utilized the internet to discover each other, shoot a movie, market, and now distribute their movie.

Link.

In college I majored in “Media Arts” but I studied film.

I had one 200 level class that included some of that egalatarian Donna Haraway cyborg nonsense but other than that it was all production, criticism, and industry studies.

It used to bother me that the name of my degree wasn’t “film” but the more I think about it the more it might someday pay off. What I’m getting at is that if art schools, business colleges, or journalism departments knew a damn thing about how the Internet is changing everything, they would be teaching this book.

Here are some of my favorite passages from Exposure, a collection of essays and transcripts borne out of the 2003 meeting influencers of media and technology in Helsinki.

Notions of property, value, ownership, and the nature of wealth itself are changing more fundamentally than at any time since the Sumerians first poked cuneiform into wet clay and called it stored grain. Only a very few people are aware of the enormity of this shift and fewer of them are lawyers or public officials.

Law adapts by continuous increments and at a pace second only to geology in its stateliness. Technology advances in the lunging jerks, like the punctuation of biological evolution grotesquely accelerated. Real world con-
ditions will continue to change at a blinding pace, and the law will get further behind, more profoundly confused. This mismatch is permanent.

The MPAA needs to read this book but then again, so do artists:

…digitised information has no “final cut”. As we return to continuous information, we can expect the importance of authorship to diminish. Creative people may have to renew their acquaintance with humility.

I wouldn’t get too comfortable with your perfect, unalterable, and totally individual vision because these days there is always going to be some 15 year old kid with iMovie ready to bastardize it.

Erick posted before explaining the “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” contest that asked for video submissions of would-be sitcoms. Hosted by MySpace, the 20 semifinalist videos have been uploaded, ready for you to stream.

The videos had to be 5 minutes or less, and simply had to make the judges laugh. The site claims that about 3000 videos were submitted.

I watched all 20 videos, or at least the first few minutes of them, and was pleasantly surprised. I doubt any were done specifically for the contest, and so they don’t seem rushed like I worried they would be. There’s even a few name actors who make appearances.

I’m not going to get into all 20, but here’s the videos you should watch and consider voting into the finals.

Division III -

About the football team at a small liberal arts college, where they don’t get the normal respect from their peers. With Andy Dick as the coach, this packed a lot of laughs into five minutes. Over the top, but definitely has potential to be a winning sitcom. 3 and 1/4 stars.

Good Cinema -

Two filmmakers order a couple of pizzas and take the delivery man and woman hostage, then force them to act out a scene. Possibly my favorite of the 20, this is really a short film that might have trouble translating to the small screen. But I think the people who made this could figure out something extremely funny to make with the $50,000 prize. 3 and 3/4 stars.

15 Newsflash -

Bizarre. A faux newscast of a live car chase, with the twist that the driver is a mouse. The mouse is in a toy tank on a track the filmmakers have set up, and the newscaster describes the action with a straight face. The end gets silly, but this gets my vote for creativity. 3 stars.

Two Cop Presentation -

With some improv (UCB) comedy veterans in the starring roles, this seems similar to “Reno 911″ in premise, but it’s too funny and promising to really care. McGinty and Sullivan play off of each other and the victims or criminals they have to deal with. Ian Roberts is particularly funny, and this series would have a lot of UCB power behind it, so it would be great. 3 1/2 stars.

Party Animals -

Not the smartest comedy in the world, this faux documentary is about a fraternity of losers. Many of the shorts were clearly influenced by “The Office”, with many actually taking place in an office. This is the funniest of the bunch, although not the most well made. Looks like it was made by a college comedy troupe, and so there’s plenty of funny, and most of it’s not too sophomoric, which is saying something given the subject matter. 3 stars.

The Comedy Team of Pete and James -

Another documentary-style show, this is about a now defunct stand-up comedy team. One is extremely succesful, and one is trying to tell the same jokes he was in the 80s, without his balancing sidekick. Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla make appearances, and the leading character is likeable enough. This wasn’t my favorite, but it’s worth seeing. 3 stars.

Also worthy of mention are “Peanut Hut”, “Jay Hole” and “Men”. Worthy of avoiding are “The Stupid Adventures of Captain Happy” and “Snowmen”. Check them out and help make someone a star!

The Los Angeles Film Festival kicked off last Thursday and Losanjealous hooked me up with two tickets to Darkon. What is Darkon?

Filmmakers Andrew Neel and Luke Meyer boldly catapult us into the make-believe medieval world of Darkon, a fantasyland where Baltimore area residents staunchly partake in an elaborate live action role-playing game. Biweekly, these men and women leave behind their ordinary lives, don their alter egos, and become warriors and heroes in a fabricated community based entirely upon wish fulfillment. And though the film’s humor is rich and the lifestyle rings peculiar, Darkon touches on a fundamental truth shared by the warring factions: in order to endure reality, you need a little or, in this case, a lot of fantasy.

It seemed like a lot of the filmmakers and quite a few of the film’s subjects were in attendance. We got there just in time to catch this tender moment between Prince and Princess Keldar Vinnerex, Knight Baronet of Mordom.

This is either Andrew Neel and Luke Meyer. In either case, the man pictured below directed exactly half of the film.

As for the movie our audience appreciation forms ranged very good to great. The production value on this doc is very impressive. There is some downright gorgeous aerial photography of the Baltimore area and a couple of hilariously epic Braveheart-esque battle scenes.

Can we think up a term for documentaries about nerds and their stupid hobbies (Spellbound, Wordplay, etc)? Hobby Doc? Geekumentary? DocuNerdary? Help me out here. Darkon was well made and entertaining but I’m not awarding any points for creativity.

During the QA the subjects ended up fielding a lot more questions than the directors. Listening to geeks explain the intricacies of Darkonian sex politics didn’t make me want to become a live action fantasy role-playing enthusiast. Nevertheless, if your interested every other Sunday members from the Southern California Darkon Chapter gather in costume and armor to fight unchoreographed mock fantasy battles with padded weaponry and magic.

Darkon (the movie) Website: http://www.darkonthemovie.com
Darkon (the game) Website: http://www.darkon.org
Darkon LA: http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/DarkonLA

This guy pirates his own movie in protest against shady Hollywood distribution deals.

If you manage to raise the money, make something worthwhile, and then actually sell it; do everything in your power to protect yourself. Read a book and get lawyer so you don’t end up like this guy.

UPDATE: Nate points out that this post makes it seem like this guy is a real life filmmaker. He is not but that would make for a far better video.

Here is a clip of Seth MacFarlane’s early work that would evolve into Family Guy.

I’m sure a lot of you will be comparing your talent level to the colleged aged Seth MacFarlane; here’s a bit of trivia, he is better educated, smarter, and more funny than you.

(via VideoSift)

This trailer mashup of Disney’s The Country bears and American History X isn’t exactly funny so much as just disconcerting.

(via BoingBoing)

DARKON
Mann Festival, Westwood
Saturday June 24 1015pm

The LA Film Festival kicks off this weekend and courtesy of Losanjealous, Glitterfish will be attending the 10:15pm screening of Darkon. What is Darkon?

Filmmakers Andrew Neel and Luke Meyer boldly catapult us into the make-believe medieval world of Darkon, a fantasyland where Baltimore area residents staunchly partake in an elaborate live action role-playing game. Biweekly, these men and women leave behind their ordinary lives, don their alter egos, and become warriors and heroes in a fabricated community based entirely upon wish fulfillment. And though the film’s humor is rich and the lifestyle rings peculiar, Darkon touches on a fundamental truth shared by the warring factions: in order to endure reality, you need a little or, in this case, a lot of fantasy.

The trailer looks amazing. You can buy tickets over at the LA Film Festival’s website.

Special note from the filmmakers:

“we are having a LARP demo at 6.15pm on saturday the 24th, the day of the premiere. it will be located in front of the LA film festival offices at 1081 Westwood Ave, LA. Darkonians will be there, including Bannor, the film’s protagonist. “

Come hang out with Glitterfish!

Check out the trailer for the William H. Macy starring David Mamet written, Edmond.

I normally wouldn’t post a trailer but its a great film and was produced by Molly Hassell, my former boss!

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Via BoingBoing there is an open debate on remix culture at openDemocracy.

Two things are very clear about remix culture today; it is very prominent in today’s culture, largely due to the wide availability of creative tools (or tools that can be repuprosed for creative practice) - the other is that it is a precarious activity due to the efforts of the various publishing industries (ri/mp aa, etc), the next generation of trusted computing and DRM could enforce an ‘ex nihilo’ mode of art practice.

Don’t click unless your into technology, society, and digital rights management.

Link.

Last weekend GlitterFish attended the CineVegas film festival. The fest ran all week and will end today. Here’s some pictures and my thoughts on the on the festival.

CineVegas is held at the Palms Casino and Resort. I was pleasantly surprised to discover a Vegas Casino that lacked plastic monuments, novelty buildings, and a fake sky painted on the ceiling. It’s a little far away from the Strip but that’s a positive in my book. The Palms is also affiliated with Playboy which assures attractive cocktail waitresses as opposed to the aging ex-stripper/chubby single mom that describes your average Vegas cocktail waitress.

One cool thing was the swanky CineVegasHQ press center. Decked out with free Vitamin Water, Red Bull, and Stella Artois, you could check your email at the bank of iMacs available and pick up as many free sharpies as you wanted. If you were really ballsy you could chat up the celebrities and filmmakers walking around but mainly I just scooped up free swag.

Speaking of celebrities we spotted Bobcat Goldthwait, Dennis Hopper, Marguerite Moreau, Ben Foster, and that dude from road trip.

As far as the films go they all screened at the Brenden Theater at the Palms. The first show we saw was the Shorts Program #1. I was really impressed and a little intimated by how good the films were. I could be nit picky (a lot of the films ran a little long) but the fact was they were all well done and entertaining. Interestingly enough, and something that should be encouraging to poor young filmmakers, between the four of us our two favorites also featured the lowest production value. My top pick was What the Captive Ate directed by Matt Lemche, a hilarious video diary about an image-conscious man trapped in his bedroom when his roommate’s guests stay longer than expected. Our other favorite was The Smoking Section directed by Chris Pozzebon. We also saw Shorts Program #2 and you can read Nate’s review of that here.

I want to quickly mention one of the features we saw, The Puffy Chair. This movie showed up on the blogosphere last year after it got some great press at Sundance. Since then it’s been all over the festival circuit and just started playing in select markets. The movie has no stars, was shot for $20,000, and its written and directed by two brothers you’ve never heard of. All it has going for it is terrific acting, a great script, and the enthusiasm of everybody who has ever seen it. I briefly talked with director Jay Duplass who explained their unfortunate lack of marketing money. They do have a MySpace page but I asked him if had done anything to engage bloggers directly and he said they hadn’t! If your going write, direct, and star in a guerrilla feature you might as well do some guerrilla marketing. It’s a great film so do yourself a favor and see if its playing in your area (it opens in LA July 7th).

As good—and bad—as the films were its cineVEGAS. Any fest that bills itself as the most dangerous film festival has got to be all about the parties. We managed to hit up the Foundation Room at the Mandalay Bay and had a really good time. There were playmates, a snotty director, and lots of suits pecking at their Crackberries. There was as also a view.

You can check more pictures over at Flickr.

DVGuru points to this special effects video (qt) explaining how they recreated Marlon Brandon’s face for the upcoming Superman Returns.

FESTIVAL WINNERS ANNOUNCED:

G.I. Jesus
Grand Jury Prize

Park
Audience Award

5 Up 2 Down
Special Award for Cinematography

The Favor and
The 4th Dimension
Honorable Mentions

RELATED: CineVegas Recap, CineVegas Reviews #1.

I wanted to give a special thanks to my good friend Nathan Swango for providing the artwork for GlitterFish’s new layout. We hope you enjoy.

There is something melancholy about this mashup of George Bush singing U2’s song Bloody Sunday. It’s mesmerizing to watch and really evokes the somberness of his presidency right now.

I just can’t bring myself to listen to U2 so I can’t really tell you how much it sounds like the original song.

The recently interviewed System-D128 just released a video to commemorate Father’s Day this year entitled “Nathan Grantham.” The video samples from Stephen King’s Creepshow. Check it out.

For more from System-D128 check out his youtube site and make sure to check out his Glitterfish interview here

Via Screenhead The Black Heart Gang Presents the The Tale of How. Glitterfish presents the youtube version but I strongly suggest you hit up the full resolution quicktime video on their website. I must say that this animated nautical opera is really rocking my shit.

I recently had a chance to catch up with System-D128. If you haven’t heard of him before, the guy is really taking video remixing to the next level. I had a discussion with him about the concept of video remixing and this is what ensued:

First off, tell me a little about yourself and how you got started in doing what you do.

Im a bugged out cat from New York that directs music videos and video mixes with my DJ skills.

How would you explain the concept of video remixing?

I would have to compare it to djing, I remember getting a 12″ or maybe even a Cassingle. You would have the song, an instrumental, an acapella, a remix, maybe 2 or 3 remixes from the same or different producers, and maybe bonus beats or an extended version with a breakdown thats not in the original…

A video remix for me woud be one, two, three or more of these type of mixes in video form…

What would you say influences your film style?

one thing for sure is record covers, the linear notes, the text, the design of the artist’s name, the record label, just the look of the record in general and not just a old record, any record, even some of the current designs of the cd’s that are coming out.

The other thing is the movement of animation or scenes of movies that coincide with the break of a song, a scratch or maybe a snare or hi hats, anything thats moving with sound…

I remember seeing Wild Style way before there was a Wave Twisters and when the movie first starts the opening title of the movie “Wild Style” tries to animate with scratching…as far as the scratch going with video I think its Wild Style.

I get influenced alot of times thru something I bump into by accident, like I just seen this movie that has some crazy 80’s music in the intro called “Yor the Hunter from the Future” the cat looks like The Beastmaster but he gets on some future type s.h.i.t.

I really feel Baltimore Club Tracks where the beats have alot of samples from movies, cartoons, tv shows from yesterday and today…

There are plenty of music video and movie directors im feeling but Im waiting to get some props from someone out there first…Lets see what happens…

What projects have you done and what are you working on for the future?

I just finished doing a DVD full of mixes for the DJ Atrak tour…

I made an official video for the Quasimoto and Sun Ra song that was on the 1st Madvillain record, I’ve collaborated with Diplo on a bunch of stuff, I made Silver Back Mountain King for Bigg Jus, I got another video I made for Bigg Jus from the Poor People’s Day record he put out on Mush called “Illustrations of Hieronymus Bosch”, I made a SuperVillains MegaMix from the record with the same title by Suckadelic.

I did the world’s first official Baltimore Club Video for DJ Johnny Blaze’s “Muppets”. I got plenty more stuff I put out on mixtapes and such.

As far as the future goes I just did some stuff for Spank Rock, I’m going to make more Baltimore House Video’s, I just got a camera so im ready to start working on more original footage too,so look me up if you want to film.

Im about to finish editing the Hoodborn DVD,thats gonna be a postive move,there’s plenty of stuff on there, Ghostface Killah,Frank N Dank,Rashan Abdul Hakim,T.I. The Beatnuts,Steven Seagal,3rd Bass,Ralphie from the Andy Milonakis Show
its gonna be crazy!

Damn you sound busy, What is your connection with White label TV and what is White label TV?

Me and one of the guys from White Label TV both did original stuff for Blockhead. He wanted to use a few video’s I was involved with like the Muppets joint and a One Thing Sticky Mix, that was it.

I sent Him a bunch of other bonus things just to check out,and He was really feeling alot of the archived footage I sent out,so we threw a bunch of other idea’s around and it grew from there. There is alot of stuff I still havent seen thats on there, the DVD keeps changing I dont know when it will be released…

At first WLTV was going to be White Label Videos like a handful of White Label Records, Unathorized videos and music…But I think its more than just that at this point, We will all find out in due time…

Do you plan to work on a feature film?

Yeah, I would like to create a whole film from scratch, I think I could handle it, watching and listening to a whole bunch of genres.

I think I can make anything from a little more than nothing…

How much further do you think video remixing can be taken?

My personal opinion, a video battle with dvdj’s would not come off right, alot of people would disagree, If there is someone reading this who does think video dj battles can work, Im sitting right now on a blueprint for the Ultimate Battle DVD…

If someone wants to come forth with money and you think it will be lucrative, I have everything needed to make it happen as far as records, to a list of animators, to cataloged music video’s, lets make it happen…

To get back to video remixing, I think it could be whatever you make it, besides what I said previously, taking a mixdown thats complete and redoing it, audio or video, legal or not, pushing the limit…Anything can and will happen. I think it will keep going further unless that one person gets thrown in prison for 5 years and/or gets that 250,000.00 fine, then mixes will be harder to locate or they will have to come out correctly with the proper funds.

Are there any other guys out there that are doing a great job video remixing?

There’s people out there that have and still are doing a good job. You got EBN, ColdCut, Hexstatic, DJ Kentaro, Mike Relm, Q-Bert, DJ Yoda…

Explain your “Muppet Show” video, and did you work closely with Johnny Blaze on it?

I met face to face with DJ Johnny Blaze, so it wasnt a situation where I just put video over a song I liked, then started showing it to people…

The “Muppets” track was already on a record months before the video was made, so we didn’t work on the music together, I took the song the way it was on the record and added other parts of the Muppets show to it, like the new intro, some scratching, additional adlibs from the characters and the end segment…

Alright, first off, I want to say thanks for granting Glitterfish the interview. Do you have any shout outs or final comments?

I want to definitely give a shout out to whoever reads this, and whoever gives a give…

On some comicbook s.h.i.t. see friendsofsound.com “book7″ system-d128 till next time…

“sprayin like pecticide, con commit suicide step into my realm and be fried by the statik………”

You can check out more of System-D128’s videos by going to his youtube site here. Also look him up on myspace at www.myspace.com/systemd128

This is the first batch of reviews from our trip to CineVegas

We’ll try to get a few up a day over the next few days with reviews coming from all four of us who went on the trip.

These four films are from Shorts Program #2. Two of the reviews are positive, and two are negative.

Bugcrush (Carter Smith) - 36:00

This terrifying film, which also played at Sundance, occupies the awkward space between short and feature at 36 minutes, but is so great that it could pull off any length. Innocent Ben has a serious crush on the new bad-boy at his high school, Grant. He attempts to get close to him and find out what the mysterious trips he takes into the woods could mean. Hopefully, it means he’s also gay. Ben maintains an acquaintance relationship with Grant, but tries to make it more than that. Eventually, Grant and his creepy misfit friends invite Ben to hang out at Grant’s house after school one day.

Ben drives them through dark rural areas and woods, up dirt roads to Grant’s abandoned shack of a home. All the while the tension builds as it’s not quite clear what Grant and his friends do after school, or what they play to do to Ben. The driving shots that peer out at the dimly lit road are particularly effective as we hear foreboding dialogue from the car.

Frightening throughout, this is a curious horror film that boasts an unforgettable ending I’m not about to spoil for you. This is director Carter Smith’s first film, but he’s done loads of commercials and makes his living as a fashion photographer. See this somewhere, somehow.

Denial (Joel Kelly) – 15:00

Starring Superman aka Brandon Routh, this short looks great thanks to some nifty 35mm camera work. There’s really nothing else positive to say about it.

The story starts with Routh and his girlfriend playing around in bed and being very lovey-dovey. As the film moves along, Routh’s character can’t seem to get a grasp on the reality of his relationship with his girlfriend. He starts to see her all around their apartment in different moods and outfits, recalling The Butterfly Effect scenes where Ashton is going a bit off the deep end.

In the end, we find out that he’s a heroin addict and as the drug wears off he is unable to maintain the good memories of his former love. As he injects in the bathroom, we see the film go back to the beginning, back to when their love was still strong.

Shot just a few weeks before Superman, Routh is the unlikely heroin addict who has time to constantly lift weights and make sure his hair is perfectly trimmed. All style and no substance, this must be a USC student film. I laughed a lot at this one as the clichés kept rolling onto the screen.

Bob Log III’s Electric Fence Story (Tinka Stock, Sébastien Wolf) - 2:30

Those who aren’t from Tucson probably don’t know about musician Bob Log, who wears a space helmet on stage and dips audience members’ boobs into glasses of scotch. Needless to say, he’s a character who can hold an audience with his music and his stories.

In this short and silly animated flick, Bob recounts the story of when he drunkenly tried to show some friends how to cow-tip, but ran into an electric fence. The claymation perfectly fits Bob’s storytelling, and this clearly surpasses anything I’ve seen on Shorties Watching Shorties.

Pardon My Downfall (David and Nathan Zellner) - 3:00

This film, if you can call it a film, consists of one joke that lasts for about three minutes as we watch the downfall of a rock-a-billy group called the Jibcutters. The joke is that they really like cocaine.

There’s nothing funny about drug addiction people, unless it’s given the student film treatment – like in Denial.