‘The Blue Umbrella’ – special screening of PIXAR short at Berlin

Project INDAC, headed by Johannes Wolters, has taken upon itself for many years to support the German animation scene with special screenings, master classes and more – a service which would not exist without it.

Today there was a special screening of the new PIXAR short (thanks to Berlinale)’The Blue Umbrella’ at Filmkunst 66. The German director Sascha Unseld presented the film, a making of, first production reels and the original pitch with which he managed to get the film produced by PIXAR.

The story is very simple but very cute (it only takes six minutes in all): Whenever it rains in a city, the city comes to life and with it the umbrellas we humans use to protect ourselves from the rain. Our hero, the blue umbrella, meets a lady, a red umbrella, at a traffic light and fals in love with her immediately. But as it so often happens with chance meetings – like at a traffic light! – their owners go different ways immediately. Our hero umbrella needs to act now if he does not want to lose the love of his life … I am not giving away more.

Director Sascha Unseld gladly described the development process of this film – from the original idea over preliminary sketches leading up to further production steps. Obviously, PIXAR seems to have taken a special interest in photo-realistic depictions as well as shading and lighting. Interesting, indeed, that even shortly before the whole project is finished a man like John Lasseter may come up and say: ‘There is one thing we have to change. Otherwise it won’t work.’ Creativity may change its opinion anytime A really fascinating hour.

If you have a chance do see it. It is very cute, very simple, but with amazing depth. In love all things seem complicated at times.

Hobbit trailer finally there

It is good to see a hobbit and some dwarves again.

High resolution version: http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/wb/thehobbit/

Enjoy watching!

The Saga of Biôrn, the Viking. Wonderful animated short

The Animation Workshop in Denmark seems to be a breeding ground for hilarious creativity in animation art if you judge it by this film – and it is a bachelor film project, i.e. done by students! The class 0f 2011 put up their stuff in February on Vimeo eingestellt and I have to thank Blaz for telling me about some of the most entertaining seven minutes I have ever had in my life.

Biôrn is a Vikings’ Viking and for him there is only thing in life he would die for: to reach Valhall, the Hall of the Fallen, where they celebrate and fight until the end of time. However, every time the opportunity arises to actually fall in battle the Gods seem to have it in for him – until, finally, he stumbles over a might troll just torching a church …

Biôrn, an old Viking, is determined to reach Valhalla, the warrior’s afterlife full of excessive drinking and debauchery. To gain entry he has to die honorably in battle, but he discovers that the right death isn’t so easy

Picture: Saga of Biôrn, Animation Workshop, 2011. A film by: Benjamin J. Kousholt, Daniel D. Christensen, Mads Lundgaard Christensen, Jesper A. Jensen, Jonas K. Doctor, Steffen Lyhne, Pernille Ørum-Nielsen, Frederik Bjerre-Poulsen, Jonas Georgakakis

Unusual reading with live music on March 5th at Periplaneta, Berlin: Jung, Märkert und Klatte

Incidentally, this event is not available in the foyer – or in German. Our apologies.

Filmkritik. Rob Roy – Historisches Highland-Drama

Bücher, die ich im Grundstudium gelesen haben sollte: Danke, Anglistikstudium!

It is that time of the year again when I start tidying up my study to prove myself I am not a rag and bone man keeping everything that should have been thrown away long ago. But then you tend to find things that do lead you to procrastination. Today’s example: the reading list I received as an undergraduate student when I started studying in 1993. All titles mentioned below were supposed to be read in only two years time. A who’s who of literary history. What do you think – did you have a similar list at your university? I’d be glad to read your comments on this. P.S.: The list is alphabetical – by eras.

Reading list for undergraduates

Prose

Chaucer. “The Pardoner’s Tale.”

Defoe. Moll Flanders; Robinson Crusoe

Fielding. Joseph Andrews

Austen. Emma; Pride and Prejudice

E. Bronte. Wuthering Heights

Ch. Bronte. Jane Eyre

Crane. The Red Badge of Courage

Dickens. Oliver Twist; Great Expectations

G. Eliot. The Mill on the Floss; Adam Bede

Hardy. Tess of the d’Urbervilles; The Return of the Native

Hawthorne. The Scarlet Letter

James. The Portrait of a Lady

Melville. Moby Dick

Twain. Huckleberry Finn.

Anderson. Winesburg, Ohio

Atwood. Surfacing

Barnes. Flaubert’s Parrot; Staring at the Sun

Bellow. Herzog

Brookner. Hotel du Lac; Family and Friends

Conrad. Heart of Darkness; Lord Jim

Drabble. The Middle Ground

Doctorow. Ragtime; Billy Bathgate

Faulkner. The Sound and the Fury; Light in August

Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby

Forster. Howards End; A Passage to India

Fowles. The French Lieutenant’s Woman

Hemingway. Short Stories

Ishiguro. An Artist of the Floating World; The Remains of the Day

Joyce. Portrait of the Artist; Dubliners

Lawrence. Sons and Lovers

Lessing. Memoirs of a Survivor

Lively. Moon Tiger

McEwan. The Cement Garden; First Love; Last Rites

Mansfield. Bliss and Other Stories; The Garden Party and Other Stories

Morrison. Song of Solomon; Tar Baby

Pynchon. The Crying of Lot 49

Roberts. The Visitation

Roth. The Ghost Writer

Salinger. Nine Stories

Silko. Ceremony

Spark. The Comforters; Loitering with Intent

Stein. Three Lives

Swift. Waterland; The Sweet Shop Owner

Toole. The Confederacy of Dunces

Tyler. The Accidental Tourist

Updike. Rabbit at Rest

Walker. The Color Purple

Weldon. Female Friends; Praxis

White. The Solid Mandala

Wilson. Late Call.

Woolf. Mrs. Dalloway; To the Lighthouse

Dolley (ed.). English Short Stories

Cochrane (ed.). American Short Stories

Bradbury (ed.). Modern British Short Stories

Drama

Everyman

Marlowe. Doctor Faustus

Shakespeare. Richard III; King Lear; A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Congreve. The Way of the World

Jonson. Volpone

Wycherly. The Country Wife

Goldsmith. The Stoops to Conquer

Sheridan. The School for Scandal

Shaw. Major Barbara; St. Joan

Synge. Riders to the Sea; Playboy of the Western World

Wilde. Lady Windermere’s Fan; The Importance of Bein Earnest

Ayckbourn. Absurd person Singular

Bond. Saved

Churchill. Top Girls; Serious Money

Edgar. Maydays

Gray. Quartermain’s Terms

Mamet. Glengary Glen Ross

Mercer. After Haggarty

Miller. Death of a Salesman

Norman. ‘night, Mother

O’Neill. Long Day’s Journey into Night

O’Casey. Juno and the Paycock

Pinter. The Caretaker

Shaffer. Equus; Amadeus

Shepard. True West

Stoppard. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

T. Williams. A Streetcar Named Desire

Poetry

Shakespeare.

Donne, Milton, Pope.

Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron

Shelley, Keats

Browning, Tennyson, Hopkins

Whitman, E. Dickinson, W.C. Williams, E. Pound, W. Stevens

Yeats, Eliot, Auden, Thomas Larkin, Hughes, S. Plath, Heaney, Causeley, Pickard

(and more from New Oxford Book of English Verse, ed. Helen Gardner)