Details directly from the author: A film by EBBËTO, ANALOG is a 27 minute black and white Science Fiction film made in 2009. It’s the first authentic Brazilian Science Fiction film, in the sense of following traditional genre literature, specially of the 60′s and 70′s. The film tells the tale of a machine traveling in deep-space which has as a primary function the preservation of a living organism: a man. Strange events with biblical analogies begin, disturbing the machine and making it rethink it’s priorities.

Watch:

ANALOG - part ø1: The Primary (Mal)Function

ANALOG - part ø2: The Construction

ANALOG - part ø3: The Electric Dream

ANALOG - part ø4: The Deconstruction

ANALOG - part ø5: The End ... The Beginning

Eerie? Indeed. Bizarre? Maybe. Excellent? Oh yeah. The main character sort of reminds me of Zordon from the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. The visuals and monochromatic appearance truly give the film a dramatic and cold effect. This type of visual work is so hard to come by, I’m glad there are still people out there that are producing modern cybernetic visuals with a retro feel. Films like 2001: A Space Odyssey come to mind which I’m pretty sure were among the artist’s inspirations. The soundtrack is especially haunting, utilizing a slow paced beat with deep analog like sounds; mostly saws and squares I believe with a few higher pitched beeps, hisses, and screeches and the like to complete the science fiction/cyber ambiance. The blending of images, rendering, and filming combined truly make the piece a work of art in itself. The beauty of science fiction is that it opens a world of endless possibilities where imagination knows no bounds, in Analog you are transported to a different place where it’s hard to sympathize or comprehend just what it is that you are looking at because it’s so different from our reality.

Every detail is meticulously crafted and well presented, the overall look is consistent and eye-catching. I spent every second marveling the procession of the visual story. It really doesn’t need words, the silence spoke much more to me because the visual impact and sound are enough to convey a message. There are a few Judeo-Christian elements in the story such as the Adam and Eve concept visually represented by a naked man and woman frolicking in nature while the main character watches but doesn’t engage himself even though there is physical interaction. The marriage of science fiction with religious undertones and the macabre is something hard to achieve so beautifully. The film is dark yet not so much in a horror kind of way, just reflecting the duality of human nature and machine. Machines are cold and superfluous compared to the nature of humankind which can be flawed just like any other machine but it is a lot basic in its makeup and essentially carnal.

The end result is a bizarre film that’s interesting to look at from start to finish and leaves you pondering about concepts of creation and/or worlds out there. One thing is for sure, I want the main character’s clothes and goggles. I love the mad scientist look. How can you work with blood and not get stained? You’re obviously very skilled or a machine as is the case of this short film. :)

In the first 5 minutes I was hooked. The narration, the animation style, the look and feel was mesmerizing, this film is not just for anyone to watch. It’s dark, violent, and gory. It deals with prostitution, organ trafficking, and plenty of disturbing themes such as rape, slavery, and murder. The story has its own dark and twisted mythology presented to you in a series of different styles of imagery and narration to captivate your attention and suck you into the the most terrifying world where fear and superstition is the only thing separating you from complete debauchery. The main character is a 16 year old boy named Tommy living in a futuristic post nuclear world that suffered an economic collapse, holy war, and alien invasion. His parents died during the Armageddon and he and his 14 year old sister live in an orphanage. Tommy’s sister Lucy is apparently comatose and he wishes he could do something for her. He finds out that her organs are being harvested for resale and that she needs a heart transplant to get better. Once he discovers this information his path to oblivion begins and enters a world of carnage he had only heard in stories.  The main female character Halfpipe  reminded me a bit of Polish artist Karolina Anderson’s visual style of characters Jesabelle and Koma, which I adore. The film is based on a series of 6 comic books. I don’t really buy comics, the only ones I physically own are Medieval Lady Death, the JTHM and I feel sick issues by Jhonen Vasquez, and Turma da Monica comics from my childhood in Brazil. First comic book I ever bought post-childhood was the JTHM Director’s Cut. That book was my bible during my freshman year of high school. I’ve been a fan of Jhonen’s work for 10 years now. Thank you James Curd, for introducing me to Filler Bunny and Wobbly Headed Bob. I was living in Texas at the time and it was easy to go to a comic book store and purchase that kind of thing. It was years later that I found JTHM comics at a Hot Topic store and bought each separate issue and then I feel sick Issue 1, ’cause I love Devi, I never found the second issue and ended up buying it directly from SLG, paying more for shipping than the actual comic but c’est la vie. Back to the main story, I felt compelled to buy the Godkiller comics but they’re out of print and/or hard to find. I read manga online all the time so I decided to purchase the online versions of the Godkiller series for 99 cents each on Graphicly. Like I said, I rarely buy comic books but I really needed to satisfy my newfound thirst for this amazing artwork and storyline. In the future I hope to have a physical copy of the comics ’cause the virtual edition isn’t enough for me. I downloaded the Graphicly app for Adobe Air. For some reason I couldn’t get the app to install from Google Chrome so I had to rely on stupid Internet Explorer (32bit ’cause Flash isn’t yet fully supported in 64bit). Alas, there are some things that are worth having in paper. I have a small laptop so I couldn’t appreciate some of the artwork at a higher resolution because there are some segments that can’t be zoomed enough, I definitely need a bigger monitor to truly appreciate the panels. Still, I could appreciate the story a lot more.

According to Wikipedia, Godkiller is a trilogy of feature length illustrated films. That being the case, I’m biding my time to await all releases and purchase a boxed set of the films and possibly a hardcover book compilation of the comics, ’cause that’s what smart collectors do. But I’m sure I’d be happy enough with the boxed set. I compared the comic with the film and there’s very little difference between the comic panels and the animated film and that’s awesome. I completely agree with the director’s decision:

“There are lots of reasons Godkiller was made as an illustrated film, but I think the most important one was really being inspired by Anna Muckcracker’s gorgeous artwork. Brian Giberson, my partner at Halo-8, and I had been experimenting with the illustrated film format for a while, but we might still have gone with traditional animation for Godkiller since it’s really risky to experiment with a crazy story and a new filmmaking format at the same time. But once I saw Anna’s art I knew that no traditional form of animation could do justice to the grimy, textured, surreal aesthetic she created. It was really an artistic choice, because from a business point of view it’s just so risky.” – Matt Pizzolo, Horror News interview

And he was right. The way the animation flows is really unique when combined with the story telling. At some moments it seems a little bit too paused, but I guess it’s because of the idea of the story being shown to you as a slideshow. It works throughout the film ’cause you can truly absorb everything that’s going on from frame to frame. One thing for sure, they earned a new fan.

But what about when you want something else? You’re looking to watch something meaningful or entertaining. That’s when Vimeo comes in. Just like YouTube, Vimeo is a site dedicated to user generated content but it differs from YouTube because their focus is more artistic. Short films, animations, documentaries, these are the types of videos that mostly dominate Vimeo. Sure, you can probably find the same video on YouTube, but you’d have to search for it specifically because they get lost among all the chola make up tuts and babies saying funny things. I love Vimeo because that’s where I get my fix for independent films and animated shorts. Just look at this video:

Do you see the difference? YouTube is great and all but Vimeo is art.

The site layout is also very impressive, I’m not a big fan of yellow but this layout is so well put together with the black and white that everything is in harmony. You have a rotating header background with super retro black and white photos, you can interact with each post with the following opinions: How dare they, You’re a douche, Hilarious, I like this, and Umm, WTF? And you can also leave a comment. Sharing is easy with the social buttons on the bottom of each post and submitting your own dear blank is ultra simple, it’s integrated into the site design. From a designer point of view, this site is truly user friendly, attractive, neat, and fun. I highly recommend it, it’s a gem! I have an odd sense of humor and I swear I haven’t laughed so much in these past two days reading the site than I have in the past months. Incredible, eh? But very true.

Thank you Jared Wunsch and Hans Johnson for creating the site and enabling people to use it as an outlet for comic relief. And their new website Grouchy Rabbit is just as good.

What to listen to and where? Sometimes you get tired of listening to the same songs you have so you seek for an alternative. Internet radio is all the rage and it’s evolved in a great way, sometimes automatizing the process. I’ll speak from experience according to MY eclectic taste of music so your results/opinions may vary. I’ve used Pandora, Last.fm, and Grooveshark. I’ve also used the mobile apps except for Grooveshark because I don’t have a VIP subscription. I like a ton of music, but usually I look for bands that I liked in high school, soundtracks I like, some pop, and mostly electronica usually switching between trance and drum n bass. If what you’re looking for is an automated playlist, Pandora and Last.fm fit the bill perfectly. You have to like and dislike the songs to get better suggestions though. With Grooveshark you have the option to create your own playlist just searching for songs you like but there’s also an Internet radio button where it adds songs to the playlist according to the songs played. Out of the three services, Grooveshark really proved to be more spot on for my tastes than the rest. I use Last.fm on my smartphone and it still gives me a lot of songs I really don’t like when I’m looking for a particular style. I stopped using Pandora because Last.fm was more accurate and offered a better selection of music I like. Using Last.fm I discovered new artists and that’s always a good thing but for an almost effortless listening experience, I give Grooveshark the kudos it deserves. I also use Blip.fm for my online music listening but that’s user generated content which is why I’m not including it in this post.

If I search for a song on Grooveshark that I like, and click on the Radio button, chances are pretty high that I’ll like the songs it suggests, maybe not all of them, but pretty close. So I’m a very happy Grooveshark user except for the mobile app since I need to subscribe.

I’m not a heavy user of online radio so maybe that’s why my experience with Last.fm hasn’t been that good but I just think it shouldn’t be so hard to find music I like so I get tired of skipping songs and eventually quit. So if you’re like me and have Music ADD, likes to be in control of what you’re listening to, and haven’t tried Grooveshark. Now’s the fucking time bitch.