Watching Steampunk short films and learning about Steampunk fashion might have been, for me, the most fun day in Genres class so far. Thank you to Nalani and Sydnie for sharing such cool stuff with us.So, about those short films—please answer the following questions:
- Which Steampunk short film was your favorite? Why?
- Which Steampunk short film was your least favorite? Why?
- Sydnie said that she watched eight hours of short films to pick out the ones she showed us in class. She said the rest of the ones she watched were either badly made or just gross and not so appropriate for high school. Why do you think so much Steampunk media is such low quality / so non-high-school-appropriate?
- How did watching all these different Steampunk videos expand your understanding of what Steampunk is / can be?
- After watching all these films, what new ideas do you have for your own Steampunk script?
I know that many of you want links to the films we watched. Here they are:
- Arm's Race: Five minute short film with British soldiers fighting a steam robot.
- Elephant's Dream: Ten minute short film with two men running through a strange "imaginary" world.
- PBS Steampunk Documentary: Five minute documentary about Steampunk.
- City of Lost Children Trailer: Trailer for a movie I hope to watch in class next week.
- Steam Powered Giraffe Music Video: The music video with the pug sing-along. "No, that's the red star!"
- Eye of the Storm: The rotoscoped music video with the solo airship captain.
- The Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello: The 25-ish minute short Steampunk Noir about airships, monsters, and sickness.
Also, be sure to check out the post with Steampunk Abraham Lincoln where we can share with each other cool Steampunk stuff we find. There is already some cool stuff there.
Ok, now it is time to comment. Full steam ahead!
Ok, now it is time to comment. Full steam ahead!
I love love Steam Powered Giraffe, and the City of Lost Children
ReplyDeletebut I do have to say I think the Eye of the Storm and Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello were my favorites.
the Eye of the Storm was very cool, the art and how they put it all together was so beautiful. and the Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello just reminded me of Little shop of Horrors BIG TIME. the creature was Twoey. the end.
My least favorite was Elephant's Dream, the idea was pretty cool and the animation wasn't bad but the rendering was really bad and it all just kinda drug around.
The low quality has to do with how still low populated the community is. Yes it is becoming big, however there's still not very much. People being so into the genre they want to try and make one themselves, but they don't quite go about it the right way, not the right material, or just bit off more than they chew.
the inappropriateness, is from people with sick minds clearly. it is very unfortunate, however there are a lot of sick minds, pervey and just disturbed, that get into communities such as steampunk, anime, etc
There's a lot you can do in steampunk, these minds find it and decide to play with it. It's unfortunate, but true. You have to be very careful when searching around cause you never know what you'll find.
La da da da da la da da da da la da da da da ......... i cant get these lyrics out of my head.... fml
DeleteSteam Powered Giraffe is a swell band.
DeleteI really liked eye of the storm because it demonstrated a lot of really good Steampunk-like aesthetics. the one I like the least was Arms race, the only steampunk element in it was the robots and their outfits look like their from the civil war and not the Victorian era.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the fan favorite were Eye of the Storm and The Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello. And I perfectly understand I loved these the most.
ReplyDeleteWith Eye of the Storm, for some reason I could imagine this Man having his heart broken, so he sets sail and throws whatever possessions he has of her away. Looking for a fresh start where all his troubles are gone and is peaceful FYI in storms, Eye of the Storm means that its in the middle of the storm making it quiet and calming.
With Jasper's story I love how well of an adaption they made from a naval story. Alongside with the 2-dimensional characters they played it out well.
I give props to Sydnie enduring through all this shorts.
Arm's Race probably had to be my least enjoyed, and Sydnie told me earlier that this was the best realistic steam punk she viewed . It just kinda fell short mainly the acting.
Eye of the Storm was SO SEXY. I loved it so much. It had AMAZING animation and it was mysterious and it was so intriguing i loved it. It had amazing lighting on the clouds and on everything and it was more realistic then the green screen on Wild Wild West and it just made me laugh. It was beautiful(:
ReplyDeleteEYE OF THE STORM WAS SO SICK OH MY GOODNESS PLEASE MORE.
ReplyDelete*cough* I mean it was ok.
Arms Race and Elephant's dream were probably my least favorites.
Arms Race was just really really cheesey and I don't do well with film cheese.
Elephant's dream was just a really uncomfortable art style for me and I didn't really understand it, maybe there's some super insane symbolism that would make me think otherwise but til then I don't like it very much.
It was nice to see other artist's interpretation of the genre was and see how they chose to incorporate it into their films. There's tons of work put into giving a film the aesthetics of steam punk and if done wrong it could make for one really poopy film full of cheese. So I see how students would want to stray away from the genre all together. But I'm hopeful for our class.
Absolutely want to write a silent script for it. With nice music playing and machinery sound effects. I think no matter how we go about the dialogue it'd turn out cheesey.
I think a lot of the themes that go along with steampunk can easily go deep into the land of cheese.
DeleteIt plays off of pirate movies, and cowboy movies, these 70's epics or fun filled John Wayne adventure films that are charming, but extremely far from reality in the way of the portrayal of good and evil, in human relationships, and even the words we use in day to day conversation.
It may be a function of the "genre", or it may be purposeful.
Steampunk likes to grab you like cap'n Kirk, with sparkling eyes as his shirt gets torn off by the robots he's fighting. It's brash, dangerous, and damn adventurous.
I sat through about 7 hours of short films to bring these to you, most of which were completely terrible.
ReplyDeleteThey were boring, poorly acted, and a giant excuse to show off some penniless artist's steampunk creations or basic knowledge in Blender to show off their blocky awkward 3-D airships.
I chose Arms Race because it was absolutely the best live action steampunk short available. It was the least forced, badly acted, or terribly animated live action short. That said, it was forced and badly acted.
Elephant's Dream had some very distractingly strange aspects; their names, the style in which they were animated (which was in like 2002 so don't hate too hard), etc. but I chose it because I thought it represented (mind you better than all the others) the style and the creativity that can go into it; though I don't really like it that much, I think it brought some interesting ideas to light.
When I say that most steampunk shorts are terrible; understand my whole meaning.
They're all terrible.
Your never getting those 7 hours back just to let you know.
DeleteIf we incorporate a Steam Punk blender lets ask that YouTube guy from "Will It Blend" he lives in Utah. Useless Information.
You're* sorry
DeleteThe Jasper Morello short was definitely my favorite. Despite the aesthetics, it still had a solid story and dynamic characters.
ReplyDeleteArms race was my least favorite. The costumes were cool, although the short itself was poorly made.
The reason why steampunk is so low quality is because the craze hasn't hit Hollywood yet. Once it hits Hollywood, there will be budgets for special effects, costumes, etc. to make the films better quality.
Why is some steampunk so disturbing? Some people are just sick, that's why. No further explanation needed.
Am I the only one that actually enjoyed watching Elephant’s Dream? Sure, the animation isn’t the best but I personally wasn’t distracted by it and I loved their quirky names… The film made me think. I wanted to figure it out. I got a few different messages out of it but they would take too long to type out here…
ReplyDeleteMy least favorite was Arm’s Race. I didn’t see the point behind it. It just seemed like an excuse to show off cool guns and robots. That’s not always a bad thing but this short film didn’t pull it off very well… It was obviously made cheaply but I’ll give them credit for trying. Steampunk just tends to be a hard aesthetic to pull off without a big budget.
These short films definitely helped me better understand why a lot of people find steampunk appealing. It can be absolutely beautiful. Although, I must say that it’s a million times better when there is a good story and characters backing it up such as what we saw with The Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello. That one was by far the most interesting story-wise.
When it comes to the issue of there being a lot of disturbing steampunk themed stuff out there, I just think that disturbing things exist in every genre and culture and we have to deal with it. I have the same problem when I look up Hellraiser. Fans of the series have created things that I simply don’t want to see, so I ignore it and move on. Not everything in life is innocent after all. The disturbing stuff exists because there are people out there that love to shock and there are people that love to sexualize everything. There are people who aren’t afraid to think up disturbing things and I personally don’t view it as a problem unless it affects their ability to function in society or causes them to directly harm other people. They’re not really doing anything “wrong” by imagining things. In fact, they could be releasing their inner demons this way and isn’t that better than what could result if they left those emotions un-expressed? I’m just trying to give a different perspective here instead of writing off a bunch of people as sick before I even know what type of people they are in their everyday lives. The people that create disturbing things aren’t always sick human beings… Example: The members of Cannibal Corpse. Their lyrics disgust me beyond belief but from what I can tell they seem like completely sane human beings with emotions and opinions just like everyone else. Yes, it’s completely okay to be disgusted by something, but does that mean we should be completely insulting towards people that think up things we don’t like? Maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know. Sorry for the mini-rant.
I don't particularly like Elephants Dream, but I chose it because, as you pointed out, it was thought provoking.
DeleteIt was one of the better example of the potential mystery and darkness of steampunk, as most of it is very lighthearted and cheesy.
I saw in the comments of the video people trying to figure out what it meant, and I think that's the point.
With a lot of steampunk, I think people are trying to make it their own, and using the terms 'disturbing', 'deep', and 'thought provoking' interchangeably. It's such a young genre that's its not even really a genre, it's an aesthetic, and because of that, people stray towards the gritty, the grimy, the disturbing, etc because that's what's "in" and it's what grabs people's attention.
Hopefully in the future, over the next 50-100 years or so it will develop into an actual genre with a formula and archetypes, right now: not so much.
i literally cant stop listening to Steam Powered Giraffe its a great band. the jasper morello video was good but i didnt like any of the others. i found them very boring
ReplyDeleteMy favorite was eye of the storm cause it was the best and the style was great.
ReplyDeletemy least favorite was arms race. it was really boring.
Cause it isnt a super popular genre and a lot of the movies made revolve around the inventions and props.
It made me realize we need airships and pugs and i didnt learn much more
still have no good ideas for a script.