END

END is without a doubt the best 3dmm short I’ve ever seen, which isn’t saying a WHOLE lot since I feel for the most part that shorts receive way more feedback than they deserve in comparison to some of the longer films that obviously have had so much more work put into them. That is the primary reason why I like this short so much, because it feels like loads of time went into it, and even if that’s not true I’ve already watched it more times than most other 3dmm movies which I think makes up for its length. The film takes an abstract artsy approach to movie making and still manages to not seem totally pretentious (which is almost impossible to avoid with anything in this style). The animation and various tricks make END beautiful to watch, even though it’s on youtube (and is without a doubt the best looking 3dmm avi I’ve ever seen, did you do anything weird when you recorded this?). The music matched PERFECTLY; it fit the mood so well and managed to make the movie extremely atmospheric (and in my opinion atmosphere is one of the very most important things in art).

As to what END might mean, I haven’t the slightest idea, and that’s a good thing. It doesn’t pretend to have meaning and that is awesome. I hate it when abstract movies obviously have meaning (or try to), they are either hoarding it over you by being so overly cryptic that only the ‘elite’ of whatever circle the artist happens to be from ‘get it,’ or it’s so obvious that its downright cheesy which automatically ruins the experience. I’m not saying that END doesn’t have meaning, all I’m saying is that if it does, I haven’t found it, and that hasn’t taken from the experience for me at all.

I don’t have many criticisms of this short, obviously I would have appreciated it to be a bit longer, but I’ve already covered basically how I feel about that. It did feel a little pointless, although Michael did state before-hand that it was an experiment, but still at the end I guess it just wasn’t satisfying in the way that most movies should be (although maybe its the breaking of conventions that makes it so good...). I couldn’t really offer any advice in this regard since it’s usually impossible to have much of a plot in a movie this short, but I don’t know. Either way, I thought it was a fantastic movie and Michael Sandford has once again proven himself to be the single greatest active director at this time. I hope you continue more serious projects, you seem to have a talent for this and I will eagerly await anything else you put out.

[Lord Cardigan]

Very detailed...inspiring...but what the hell???