Tag: Short Films (1-10 of 23)

May 30 2013 06:44 PM ET

Chris Columbus in talks to direct feature version of award-winning short film 'Pixels'

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Image Credit: Theo Wargo/WireImage

Columbia Pictures and Happy Madison are looking to hire Chris Columbus (Home Alone, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone) to direct Pixels, the feature version of a short that garnered buzz upon its release in 2010. Columbus will soon begin formal negotiations for the directing gig, EW has confirmed. THR first reported the news.

Pixels, a clever short film by Patrick Jean, depicts 8-bit creatures attacking New York. Pac Man munches on subway stops. Tetris pieces break down skyscrapers. Donkey Kong climbs the Empire State Building. The short won the prestigious Annecy Cristal award at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in 2011. READ FULL STORY »

Apr 3 2013 12:36 PM ET

'Sin City' director Robert Rodriguez wants YOU to be in his movie

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Image Credit: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

Robert Rodriguez is currently juggling work on two buzzy feature projects, the sequels to 2005’s Sin City and 2010’s Machete, but he’s also in the midst of putting together a smaller project, a short film called Two Scoops – which is getting plenty of buzz of its own for its innovative ways of inviting fans to participate in its making. READ FULL STORY »

Mar 11 2013 05:31 PM ET

Tribeca Film Festival announces shorts lineup with films featuring Elijah Wood, Elle Fanning, more

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Image Credit: Mike Coppola/Getty Images

For short films, the Tribeca Film Festival is a must. Winning the award for Narrative Short or Best Documentary Short automatically qualifies a film for the Academy Awards. Their track record isn’t too bad either. Shawn Christensen’s Curfew had its New York premiere at the Festival and went on to win the Academy Award.

This year, Tribeca will show 60 short films in eight categories, from a variety of new and returning directors (including Christensen with Grandma’s Not A Toaster), and featuring performances from a number of Hollywood stars. Elijah Wood plays a standup comic who attempts a daring set in Setup, Punch (Worst Day Ever category), Elle Fanning deals with eating disorders and societal standards for beauty in Likeness (Skin Deep category), and Dominic West plays an inventor who loses his wife and must figure out another way to raise his child in The Girl with the Mechanical Maiden (Deadbolt category).

In the press release announcing the lineup, TFF Director of Short Film Programming and Initiatives Sharon Badal said, “These short programs run quite the emotional gamut, and we look forward to surprising our moviegoers with some very unique stories this year.”

Click past the jump for the full list.

READ FULL STORY »

Feb 24 2013 05:21 PM ET

Why the Oscar-nominated animated shorts were pulled from YouTube

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Paperman

Image Credit: Disney

Remember when Cinemark theaters threatened to boycott Tower Heist because it would be available on VOD during its theatrical release? Imagine if a film were available in full, not only on pay-per-view, but online for free during its theatrical release. That’s what happened with this year’s Oscar-nominated animated shorts, which cable channel ShortsHD, in conjunction with the Academy, has been screening around the country since Feb. 1.

After free versions of all five animated shorts cropped up on websites like YouTube and Hulu, theaters showing the films threatened to stop screening the animated slate if the films remained online for free. So ShortsHD asked the nominees to pull their films from the web, as first reported by Deadline. READ FULL STORY »

Feb 23 2013 05:59 PM ET

Martin Freeman, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, 2013 Oscar nominees honored at Shorts Awards

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Image Credit: ShortsHD

Martin Freeman starred in one of the lengthiest movies of 2012, but Friday night he was honored for his work in films with much shorter runtimes and much smaller budgets than the 169-minute-long Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. At the third annual ShortsHD Shorts Awards, Freeman picked up the Visionary Actor Award.

The English actor has continued to make short films, even after performing in high-profile projects like BBC’s Sherlock and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

“I love doing [short films] for the same reason that everyone in this room really likes them – because very often it’s the time that you get to really express an idea or ideas without someone breathing down your neck or without someone arguing about how big your trailer is,” Freeman told the audience gathered at the Paley Center for Media last night. “No one’s getting rich or famous out of it, but people are actually trying to express something – and it doesn’t take 18 months like The Hobbit does.” READ FULL STORY »

Feb 19 2013 11:14 AM ET

Give Maggie Simpson an Oscar! Watch nominated short 'The Longest Daycare' -- VIDEO

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Can a yellow-skinned, pacifier-loving baby defeat four fierce foes — including a swoon-inducing urban fairy tale from Disney — at the Academy Awards?

We won’t know for sure until Sunday, when this year’s Oscars — including the prize for Best Animated Short Film — are handed out in Los Angeles. In the meantime, audiences can content themselves with watching that baby’s Academy-approved short film on Hulu. “The Longest Daycare” finds mute, cute Maggie Simpson grappling with her unibrowed arch-nemesis at the Ayn Rand School for Tots. Though the David Silverman-directed short originally appeared in 3-D before theatrical screenings of Ice Age: Continental Drift, you’ll have to be satisfied with this two-dimensional rendering:

READ FULL STORY »

Feb 15 2013 03:45 PM ET

Oscars 2013: Spotlighting the documentary short film nominees

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Image Credit: Kief Davidson

The Oscar-nominated documentary shorts tend to be a little more sobering than the animated and live action shorts. These filmmakers are attempting to show current realities, no matter how difficult or unpleasant they might be. But there is also beauty amid the pain.

There’s the 15-year-old homeless girl who finds comfort in her art, the stoic and hard working canners in New York, the sick but brave Rwandan children treated by another country’s generosity, the Long Island cancer patients who lose all their hair but gain a lot more, and the retirement community residents who find moments of joy in the middle of old age’s toughest moments.

With just over a week left before the Oscars, EW spoke to the directors of all the nominated documentary shorts for this deep dive into the category.

READ FULL STORY »

Feb 13 2013 11:59 PM ET

Oscars 2013: A close-up look at the live action short film nominees

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Image Credit: Serendipity Films

Spend some time watching the films nominated for the Oscars’ live action short award, and you’ll find yourself taking a round-the-world tour from Afghanistan to Canada to France to Somalia to New York.

With stories from all corners of the globe, this varied collection of shorts touches on issues of poverty, of aging, and of the choices people are faced with when given great power.

As you get ready to fill out your personal Oscar ballot, here’s a look at the chilling, bittersweet, heart-warming films in the race for the live action short award this year. The winner, along with the top film in the documentary and animation short categories, will be announced at the Academy Awards on Feb. 24.

READ FULL STORY »

Feb 13 2013 04:17 PM ET

Oscars 2013: A close-up look at the animated short nominees

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Image Credit: Matt Groening

Man’s best friend, guacamole, marriage, Ayn Rand and paper airplanes are just a few of the subjects tackled in this year’s lineup of Oscar-nominated animated shorts.

All these films have in common is that they’re under 40 minutes long and created through some form of animation.  Otherwise, the films are wildly different in both tone and technique. Some are stop-motion films, some are hand-drawn, others computer-generated — and one is a hybrid.

As you get ready to fill out your own personal Oscar ballot, here’s a look at the funny, sweet, and serene stories facing off in the animated shorts category this year.

READ FULL STORY »

Feb 10 2013 09:00 AM ET

'Paperman': Watch the step-by-step animation process for Disney's Oscar-nominated short -- EXCLUSIVE VIDEO

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Paperman

Disney’s charming short film up for an Oscar this year, Paperman, is a nostalgic return to the tradition of 2-D, hand-drawn animation that also embraces what modern 3-D animation technology has to offer.

The short is a little urban fairy tale about a man who attempts to capture the attention of the woman of his dreams with paper airplanes he launches from his skyscraper office to hers. It was made with new in-house software called Meander that enables a hybrid approach to animation, where characters and backgrounds are drawn over an initial digital layer.

To see that innovative new animation method in action, check out the EW exclusive video below, a progression reel displaying the process of creating one shot in Paperman.

SPOILER ALERT! Do yourself a favor and watch the entire six-and-a-half-minute short here before watching the reel below that reveals a key moment in the film. READ FULL STORY »

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