The easiest way to illustrate why filmmaking is the most collaborative art form is to look at one of my favorite films from past festivals: The Passenger. It’s a 7-minute short that was entirely self-funded and self-produced, as well as written, designed, modelled, textured, illuminated, animated, composed, recorded, mixed, edited, and directed by Chris Jones. After watching this low res, high compression version, take a moment to guess how long it took him to complete it working solo.
For the answer to the question and a very entertaining description of the process involved, read Chris’ report on How to Make a Seven Minute Film in Just Eight Years.
For anyone interested in animation, he includes his gear list of software and hardware and all sorts of other technical trivia under a section he calls Useless Information.
The Passenger holds the distinction of being the only film we’ve screened in 3 different events: (1) as part of the package of Oscar Nominated Animated films in our first festival in 2007; (2) as part of the school program in our 2009 festival; and (3) as part of the Digging the Arts film package celebrating Alberta Arts Days in Sept 2010. Loving it as much as I do, I was eager to hear about his next project when I emailed Chris about the Alberta Arts Days screening. In his July 20, 2010 email, he wrote, “I have been working on some new film ideas, but at the moment they’re all far too ambitious to be finished within my lifetime unless someone finds a cure for death, or I relax my ‘do everything yourself’ policy..!” Personally, I hope he does relax his policy. I’d love to see a new Chris Jones film more often than once every eight years!
