Elephants Dream
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Elephants Dream |
| Original title | Elephants Dream |
| Country of production | Netherlands |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2006 |
| length | 11 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Bassam Kurdali |
| script | Pepijn Zwanenberg |
| production | Ton Roosendaal |
| music | Jan Morgenstern |
| occupation | |
| |
| chronology | |
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Successor → |
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Elephants Dream is a surreal , computer-generated short film that was created almost exclusively with free software and released under a free Creative Commons license . The working name of the film project was Orange .
Due to the positive reactions and experiences from this project, a second film was released on April 10, 2008 under a Creative Commons license: Big Buck Bunny .
The language of the film is English , but there are subtitles in over 30 languages.
history
The film was first announced in May 2005 by Ton Roosendaal , chairman of the Blender Foundation and chief programmer of Blender . Blender is the main program used in the production of the film. Shortly after the announcement, the Blender Foundation began taking pre-orders for the film on DVD . Anyone who pre-ordered the DVD before September 1, 2005 will be named in the credits .
Production began in September 2005 by the Orange Project , a group of six artists and animators from around the world. The film was originally called Machina before it was renamed Elephants Dream . The new title is based on a Dutch tradition of bedtime stories and purposely does not have an English genitive apostrophe . The world premiere was on March 24, 2006 in Amsterdam .
The aim of the film is primarily to show the possibilities of open source software and of Blender as a professional tool for films. Several new features, such as hair and fur rendering , were added to Blender during the production of the film .
The content of the film (including the production files) is published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY).
Elephants Dream and the production files were released on DVD on May 3rd, 2006. On May 18, the film and production dates were also released on the Internet. Elephants Dream is the first German film to be officially available on HD DVD since August 14, 2006, making it the first European title in this format.
action
Without exception, the film takes place in a huge surreal machine, a dream world. The old man Proog ( Tygo Gernandt ) leads the young Emo (Cas Jansen) through a machine. The viewer sees this tour from the eyes of Proog, who obviously suffers from violent delusions, but always seems safe and experienced, while Emo, on the other hand, seems fearful and always stays close to Proog. The two go through several rooms of the machine that always look different, which usually have no transition to one another and represent Proog's abstract hallucinations .
At the beginning you are in a room consisting of a gigantic telephone switchboard. Proog saves Emo from flying plugs and emphasizes that it is not safe in the machine. The next room is very dark; there are thousands of electrical cables and bird-like robots inside. Emo and Proog are walking the only path when suddenly the bird-like machines take up the chase. They flee head over heels and land immediately in the next room. A phone rings and Emo tries to pick up the phone. Proog prevents him and explains that it is a trap. There is also a robot-like creature in the room, which partly consists of a typewriter and types on itself. Emo can only laugh about it.
The next room is similar to the second: it's dark again. A huge abyss does not seem to allow a crossing of the room. When Proog goes nowhere, however, metal supports appear from below to support him. Proog moves through the room with ease, he dances and explains to Emo that the machine is like clockwork, one wrong step and one would be crushed. Emo, on the other hand, walks almost bored through the room and doesn't seem to notice the stilts that support it. The two enter a kind of elevator, which accelerates and is catapulted through several threatening aperture blades. Proog tells Emo to close his eyes. When he does this, both are suddenly shrouded in darkness. Proog asks Emo what he's seeing; Emo truthfully replies that he doesn't see anything. This seems to confirm Proog, they plunge rapidly and come into the next room. A projector throws a picture of a door onto the wall, from which music is playing. Emo wants to go through the door, but Proog says it's dangerous. He takes his stick and pushes a red button that's on it. The projection is shaken briefly, but does not disappear. Only after the third push of a button does the room fade and is replaced by a narrow and oppressive one.
Proog asks Emo why he doesn't recognize the beauty, the perfection of the machine. Emo is now expressing his thoughts for the first time, namely that the machine does not even exist. Proog gives Emo a slap in the face, to which Emo reacts frightened and moves away from him. Just before he threatens to hit the wall, it moves away from him. He now imitates Proog and tries to show the absurdity of the machine. He claims that the whole machine is only there for Proog and that it is now the turn of the hanging gardens of Babylon . The space is gradually dissolving and metal creepers sprout from everywhere. Now he mockingly explains to Proog that the Colossus of Rhodes is coming, and only for Proog. The fantasy world constructed by Proog to protect against the real world threatens to disintegrate. Two huge hands appear and throw Proog to the ground. Proog feels threatened and knocks Emo down with his stick to silence him. Then the hands and arms disappear again and the machine is fine again. Proog asserts that the machine exists.
People involved
- Ton Roosendaal - producer
- Bassam Kurdali - animation director and director
- Andy Goralczyk - production designer
- Matt Ebb - artist
- Bastian Salmela - artist
- Lee J Cocks - artist
- Toni Alatalo - Technical Manager
- Jan Morgenstern - composer
Used software
- the 3D software Blender
- the graphics software CinePaint
- the image editing program GIMP
- the programming language Python
- the Apple image editing software Seashore
- the version control Subversion
- the music production software Reaktor ( proprietary )
- the network application framework Twisted
- the network protocol verses for real-time - graphic programs
Complete film
The film can be viewed here in reduced resolution.
Web links
- Orange Project website
- Download page for film and production files
- Blender's Open Movie Project - Slashdot ( May 25 , 2005 )
- Elephants Dream in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Elephants Dream project page
Individual evidence
- ↑ Proprietary software that was used was Reaktor (software) and Mac OS X
- ↑ Subtitles in srt format ( memento of the original from June 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Hairy Issues. Entry in the project blog from September 28, 2005
- ^ Creative Commons License. Entry in the project's blog from April 18, 2006
