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Pierre: A Hole with A View
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3 votes)
A live-action Ratatouille with a romantic twist, Dan Brown's "Pierre: A Hole with a View" is a delightful, narrative short about the unrequited love between a French mouse and his gorgeous new human roommate. The Grand Jury Prize winner at the South by SouthWest Film Festival's recent online "SXSWclick" event, the 35mm film also won an Audience Award for best short at the recent 2007 Seattle International Film Festival.
Inspired by old Warner Bros. "Looney Tunes," Disney animated cartoons and Tex Avery shorts, "Pierre" is set in a nostalgic art-deco Parisian milieu, featuring high-gloss locations shot in Seattle. Brown won a Spotlight Award from the Independent Feature Project based on the screenplay, which amounted to free film, transfer, audio and camera equipment. With $20,000 raised from family and friends, Brown says he was "forced" to make the film.
Brown never went to film school, but he learned After Effects and motion graphics while at Seattle art school; and worked at design house Digital Kitchen for more than three years.
"Pierre" was a true labor of love, taking two years to complete. "Finding someone to do music, make a 3D mouse, and a free or nearly free voice actor to work on it, took some time and put me at their mercy to finish it," he admits. "You can't really enforce a timeline when someone is doing you a favor."
After the success of "Pierre" (two major awards + two free Macs, "no complaints from me," says Brown), he'd like to leap from motion graphics to a directing career. "I have a few scripts I'd love to turn into films," he says. He'd also like to turn a faux-trailer he made for SXSW's Grindhouse Trailer Competition into a feature film; it just so happens that Brown's trailer -- called "Maiden of Death" -- was one of the best of the bunch. The creme really does rise to the top.
-Anthony Kaufman
Dan Brown
Drama, Comedy
6:52
$20,000
woman : Tasha Smith
mouse : John Armstrong (voice over)
Drew Bourneuf
Dan Brown
Matthew J. Clark
