Film Review of Jack and Chuck

Trailer

http://vimeo.com/25711966

A film review of “Jack & Chuck”

by Alexandre Chaudret, Themoas Crepin and Maureen Kressmann

This past summer I had the chance to be a student volunteer at Siggraph in Los Angeles, and part of the program of the conference is the Electronic Theatre, a film exhibition where studios, schools and film makers from around the world have the opportunity to showcase their films to the Siggraph attendees. I only had the chance to watch part of the exhibition but a film caught my attention, even though I couldn’t see it entirely. I remembered the mood of the film, the characters, the music and the end of the story, which is what I saw at Siggraph, but I didn’t know the name of the film. After searching on the internet for it I found it and I found the blog of one of the film makers who was kind enough to reply to my e-mail and allow me to see the entire film. I had high expectations because of the impression it made on me the fraction of it that I saw in Los Angeles, and it definitely met those expectations.

The film is about a writer, Chuck, who has no arms and uses his mouth and a pencil to write on a typewriter, but he has a lot of struggles and every time he fails at his writing he rips the piece of paper off with his mouth and drinks from a bottle of Jack Daniels on his desk with the help of a straw. As he struggles in his writing, a second character comes to visit him. This character is a big and charismatic person called Jack, who is a salesman and comes to offer the writer a pair of metal arms and hands to help him write, but the offer is not in exchange of money, but instead Chuck has to give his tongue to keep the arms. Chuck agrees after a lot of thinking and Jack cuts his tongue off.

The film made a big impression on me, mainly because of its visual style, a very grotesque and black and white environment, with very strong lighting and organic characters. The story also seemed very original and strong to me, and the story telling of it was very solid, delivered through dialogue and strong acting from both characters. The music added a comedic and dramatic sense to it, being a country genre with vocals.

The other aspect of the film that impressed me and inspired me was the fact that students, from the Supinfocom Animation College in France, produced it. Three of them collaborated on the project for one year and they had a very successful acceptance from festivals and audiences. This inspired me because they were in a situation similar to mine at the moment, being students with responsibilities beyond the film, but they still managed to have a big and successful project by overcoming those obstacles, and made me realize that I might be able to do something similar.

The film also pushed the style of my grad film, because before watching Jack and Chuck I had rough ideas of what I wanted my film to look like, but I hadn’t found something that communicated me that feeling and this film did. The visuals are very appealing and the environment is simple but very interesting, as well as the characters.

The film, beyond being an original and interesting story, taught me the outcomes that hard work and team collaboration can achieve, and Alexandre Chaudret, the film maker that answered my e-mail, encouraged me to keep working on my ideas even though if they seem big, and he also told me that I would encounter a lot of obstacles, both technical and artistic during the production of my film, but that relying on your peer is one of the best ways to keep going on the right path.

Fernando Ortega

Why Toy Maker?

My idea changed significantly in the last two months due to time and technical constraints. Here is the new version of my Why? paper based on the new stage of the film.

Why Toy Maker?

My new film is a new version of my original idea “Dream Trader”. The reason it changed is mostly because of time, but also due to the lack of technical and artistic experience I have to be able to have the results I wanted in the previous film. This new film, which I temporarily call “Toy Maker” is shorter, visually simpler and focused on the comedic part of the story which will make it flow faster and have a clearer ending, and it will also allow me to focus the development of the film on animation, which is what I am focusing my career on at the moment.

The new story of the film carries a lot of elements from “Dream Trader”, specially the two characters, the duality between the old man and death, and the environment of the original film. It also brings back some ideas that I had since third year and inspiration from different films and works that have influenced me. One of my main influences is José Saramago’s book “Death with Interruptions” which brings the idea of death writing letters to humans as a notification of their time for departure. The book involves other ideas about the letter, but I am using the idea of having an official piece of paper representing the news from death to humans.

This book influenced me mostly because it breaks the traditional representation of death and the grim reaper, so much that in the end death becomes a woman and falls in love with one of the main characters of the book. The expansion in death’s personality, beyond just being an omnipresent being also influenced me, and that is why the most developed character in my film is death, because I wanted to emphasise that break in the stereotype of a grim reaper and also place the human-like interaction between characters from different worlds/dimensions.

This developed personality also comes from my own culture, especially from the Day of the Death, which is dedicated to honour death and the people that have passed away, although it is not intended to be a sad day, but rather a celebration full of colour and playfulness, as well as trickery. The “Catrina” is the main persona in this day, it is the representation of death, even though the original intention of the character wasn’t to portray a grim reaper, people appropriated it as part of our culture. José Guadalupe Posada, a Mexican illustrator, whose work satirized news and events with skeleton characters, created this character.

The Catrina represents death as being full of life and with a richer personality, taking death with a lot of respect but at the same time appreciating the life that precedes it. A famous Mexican saying explains this better, “Let’s live... Because we are born to die!”

I have researched a lot about this topic during my time at Emily Carr, and I have learned more about my own culture because of this, and I have also understood some of the reasons why we, Mexicans, have this tradition. As I said above, the whole idea behind this celebration is about honouring death with respect, but deeper inside this belief is the commemoration of life, the fact that we are still alive to be able to celebrate, and the realization that we all will come to the last day of our lives. The message that the Day of the Death and the Catrina try to bring, according to my understanding, is that we must “play” and celebrate the time that we are given to live, because no matter what we do different from other people, we all end up in the same place. A quote that I heard from Steve Jobs explains this clearer, “If you live each day as if it was your last, some day you will most certainly be right”.

My film is a little homage to my culture and to this belief, a story about the climax in a person’s life, where death and life coincide to play one last time before the end. It also brings a human connection between death and humans, as Huesos, the main character, starts to become more and more human as the game progresses and in the end he loses his omnipresence by losing the game and failing to complete his job. We will see this progression during the film, ending with a comic situation that will make both characters likeable and will bring them together, maybe as friends.

My intended audience is very broad, since I am avoiding the need of knowing my cultural background in order to understand the story but I also wanted to have these cultural ideas involved in a way that anybody can relate to, and laugh about.

The intention of the project itself, beyond the story and my culture, is to test the knowledge that I have gained during my time at Emily Carr and also to have a finished piece of work of my own to show to potential employers, with the main focus being animation, but also showing other skills that I have. I also want to test this knowledge by being able to engage an audience with my work, since that is of one of my bigger goals and commitments as an artist. 

Fernando