I enjoy Signe’s work…
but, this reminds me about the problem I have with a lot of short films. The end credits are too long! Especially in a piece of this length. The end credits are almost half the films running time. This used to be a “student films” problem.. but, it is showing up in lots of indy stuff too…

In the spirit of “short & with a punch” I wanted to whore out a small piece I did for the Frederator 5-second contest.

http://meridiandream.com/testing/45seconds/Assets/Special5Seconds/ex-girlfriend.html

I really really like Signe’s films. They’re funny and relatively creepy, and inspiring as far as continuing to just “make stuff”.

She has this great theory of “Once Upon a Time”… Tell your film idea so someone starting with “Once Upon a Time”, and in the telling you’ll discover how & what to show in the film itself. Pretty cool.

I don’t get it :( Is the camera looking downward? Why does he fall out a window?

Not wild about the Desire short.

Jim M.: I like the drawings and the timing. Some issues going on though, huh?

Not exactly the most inspired short. Anybody with the slightest taste for obscenity could’ve thought of that.

I don’t think the camera is looking downward. I think the camera is POV mother after birth. We’re looking across her belly and it’s not gravity pulling the baby away but some sort of wind (listen up). And guys, the credits are the whole effing point. Think hard. . .

If you don’t want to think hard, let me lay out my interpretation. It takes a long time to gestate a baby, it takes 18 seconds for it to be torn away. Maybe the credits being so long are pointing back at the mother.

Also, Signe’s doing a thing here which not many animators do. She’s experimenting with the damned medium (and not aimlessly, see above). A film’s not necessarily just “story, story, story.” It’s also titles, credits and all that. I think it’s pretty damned ballsy for Signe to pull an Andy Kaufman and screw with her audience. Especially since a lot of folks don’t give it the thought and attention it deserves. The film isn’t as funny on youtube as it is on the big screen (picture it), but it’s still pretty damn great. . . especially if you’re in on the joke.

Oh, and dude, not only is it unwise to call something uninspired when you didn’t think of it, it’s not remotely obscene (just a boob, they’re everywhere).

I’m with Arthur. Lengthy credits heightens a simple gag. Bambi meets Godzilla by Marv Newland has the same idea. 2 minutes, six drawings and $30,000 later..

I really like Signe’s work. She’s original, prolific and has a point of view. As far as I’m concerned, her credits can run as long as she pleases.

It’s interesting how what you intend doesn’t always play. “Bambi Meets Godzilla”’s credits are integral to the short in that they help tease your expectation up to the big stomp. In this case, the extensive credits just call attention to themselves and it’s annoying. There’s no payoff in that, if a payoff was even intended.

I like the animation of the arms grasping and hauling the baby up the belly, on a positive note.

Nope, I don’t get the umbilical cord thing.

If the credits are “the whole effing point” then there’s no point there.

If the point is that there is no point, well… that’s a bit like how the lack of evidence for WMDs was proof of how well they were hidden.

I’d also say that Marv Newland pretty much exhausted the whole comedy credits thing leaving little room for lesser imitators.

Marv Newland did it 200 years ago.

‘Bambi vs. Godzilla’ is brilliant. Three cheers for Mr. Newland and everyone who remembers it! He may have been the first to play with credits (I couldn’t say for sure), but he certainly didn’t exhaust the idea. Exhausting ideas is pretty damned tough, you know? I mean, Disney did Bambi like three-hundred years before Newland did.

The point, I think, is that in ‘The First Desire’ you have a film about creation. Or, maybe more specifically, about the release of a creation to the world. Add to that the ambiguous title (no, really) and you’ve got a puzzle. The first desire might be the baby’s thirst for milk, the world’s hunger for babies or a creator’s desire for credit. It’s all there.

Probably WMDs in the walls, too.

To see a somewhat earlier version of the credits gag, watch Buster Keaton’s “The Playhouse”, which is actually funny. I didn’t think this film was particularly successful. It should be clearer as to why the baby gets sucked out the window (a little wind noise doesn’t suffice for me).