Schizophrenic Brush – Le Ballon Rouge

Alex Petrisor — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:05:55 +0000

For those not familiar with Le Ballon Rouge (The Red Balloon), it’s a short fantasy French film from 1956. It has won numerous awards including an Oscar and a Palme d’Or, and it follows the adventures of a young boy who one day finds a sentient, mute, red balloon.

The red balloon follows the boy (Pascal) through the streets of Paris, and together they overcome several obstacles. Near the end, a group of bullies, jealous of Pascal’s new friend, manage to pop the balloon with a slingshot. It collapses to the ground, deflates and dies. After that, an army of multicoloured balloons gather from all across Paris and surround Pascal, and in an attempt to cheer him up, they pick him up in the sky and take him on an amazing ride above the city. I’m sure that you recognize this image from *cough* recent TV commercials and films.

Our brief was to create a summary of the film, without leaving the studio, and in under 8 hours. This is our interpretation of the story. Watch it, and I’ll give you some more explanations afterwards.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So, as you’ve probably guessed, the paintbrush represents Pascal and the green paint represents the balloon. They have a great journey together, several objects try to stop them, to a point where another brush wants to steal the green life-force.

We saw the film as a dance between the boy and the balloon, where initially the boy has the lead, only to let the balloon take full control nearing the end. After all the green paint dries down and the paintbrush drops lifelessly, a refreshing rain of colour brings life to the story again and takes the paintbrush to whole new heights.

Don’t be shy, share your thoughts with us.

The Body Language Film

Alex Petrisor — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 13:20:56 +0000

Wikipedia says: “Body language is a form of non-verbal communication, consisting of body pose, gestures, and eye movements. Humans send and interpret such signals subconsciously.”

But what if it is more than that? What if it’s some sort of empathic connection that links us to everyone around us? The human brain is still one of the biggest mysteries of mankind, so what if there is more to this then meets the eye? At least that’s what we thought when we got this brief.

Just like dogs communicate through scent, ants through pheromones and dolphins through sound waves, what if we possess an instrument that is much more powerful than our vocal cords, if trained and used properly? Understanding body language is by no means a trivial task, but once you get to master it, you will see the world with different eyes.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Our take on it was that body language is actually your inner spirit interacting with the people around you and their spirits. And thus, if you understood and connected to your inner self, you could read others like open books. Our goal was not to impose our opinion on the viewer, but just slightly hint that body language is much more important than people make it to be. We have also achieved this by showing the main character (Shibly Alawi) smoking what seems to be a joint in the opening, as to give an explanation to the surreal feel of the film. However, at the end of the film, when he finds the scarf on the bench, the viewers are again hinted that this might be actually true.

Due to unexpected events, we had to film with a regular Canon 15 fps photo-camera. This bummed us a bit, but we had a great time filming it, and in the end it turned out better than I expected.
We would love to hear what you have to say about our take on body language.

Padizine Blog » Indie Film and Animation Gallery

Schizophrenic Brush – Le Ballon Rouge

The Body Language Film