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The Sailor and the Fiendish Foot
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4 votes)
From The Dandy Dwarves, a production company originally based out of the Savannah College of Art & Design, comes this inspired, wacky fable about a dying man lost at sea and plagued by a foot with evil intentions. Directed by 24-year-old Christian Simmons, a 2005 Broadcast Design and Motion Graphics SCAD grad, "The Sailor" came about as a result of the group's desire to do a piece involving the water.
"I tend to gravitate toward pieces with a fanciful ugliness to them," explains Simmons, "and I thought it could be reminiscent of an old legend or folk tale." Simmons also wanted the video to seem as if it was part of a much longer project "and only get a brief glimpse of it," he says, "while at the end still feeling satisfied."
The short cleverly combines live-action with an animated speaking foot, complete with a large, teeth-y mouth, voiced by Simmons himself. "On the day of the ocean shoot, our actor J.R. had tracking points painted onto his foot," says Simmons, explaining how they conceived of the talking appendage. "Later, we'd analyze the movement of his foot and then I'd have to match the movement of J.R's foot from the boat so that there wouldn't be any discontinuity with the angle of the mouth as compared to the angle of the foot." Then their visual effects supervisor Andrew Cook painted off Simmons' mouth and artfully stuck it onto J.R's foot. "Then he'd color correct and add a slight morphing to the skin to create the effect of it stretching as the lips speak," he explains.
While The Dandy Dwarves got their start in Savannah, they're currently transporting operations to San Francisco. "I'm super excited for the climate change," says Simmons. "Savannah has been kind to me, but it's time to get out of the heat."
In the Bay Area, the Dwarves are hoping to continue to make more short-form videos, but "nothing is set in stone," says Simmons. "We loved documentary work as well as -- who knows -- feature films in the future. While we have a somewhat large body of work beneath us right now, I'll go out on a limb and say this is just the very beginning."
You can read more about SCAD's shorts program and watch a making-of video for "The Sailor and Fiendish Foot" at the link.
-Anthony Kaufman
Comedy, Web Series
3:00
$8,000
JR Reynolds : Seaman
Christian Simmons : Mouth
Josh Lind
Christian Simmons
Scott Johnson
Christian Simmons/Josh Lind
Director : Christian Simmons
VFX : Andrew Cook
Sound Design : Colin Alexander
