Claim Me!

📅 This Week on Short of the Week

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It was an American holiday in the US on Monday, so rather than schedule a premiere, we posted a Shortverse collection of 12 terrific shorts that concern themselves with Native culture from Native filmmakers. Many of these are past S/W picks, but kudos are owed to Sundance, as they have consciously supported many of the filmmakers included here.

On Tuesday I reached back to highlight the 2009 short Birth, from the Brooklyn animator Signe Baumane. The cause for this “classic” pick was to honor the filmmaker as her second independent animated feature film My Love Affair With Marriage begins a theatrical tour of the US. With an immense body of work, the former Bill Plympton collaborator is an independent animation legend. I was pleased to see that this, her last official short, holds up as well as ever.

Then Rob covers The Diamond by Vedran Rupic. With a commercial and music video background, Rupic is capable of immense visual wit! Filled with surreality but also genuine emotion, this was a New Yorker magazine release after playing Odense and Fantastic Fest and is one of our recent faves.

Then, courtesy of Miyu Distribution, is Carne de Dios which I previewed in last week’s edition. From Patricio Plaza, this 20min symphony of drug-fueled hallucinatory violence and sexual depravity is also a cathartic and nuanced story of colonial revenge, as an abusive priest is forced to undergo the traditional rituals he previously repressed. A mammoth achievement with over 100 artists helping bring the film to life, this is a top contender for award season if voters can stomach its explicit imagery.

For YouTube this week we dipped into the archive with The Last Virgin in LA — a very dry and funny short we featured in 2017 from the talented actor/writer/director Zane Rubin. Being a virgin ordinarily isn’t a problem, but in this version of LA child actors and reality TV stars have hunted down every other virgin in the city! It’s not that gnarly though, in his review, Georg suggests that it, “feels like a short that could easily be ripped off by/inspire a similar sketch for SNL."

💡 Product Updates

Hot on the heels of last week’s big Festivals release, comes another highly requested feature!

As part of our mission to make Shortverse a network for the entire short film universe, we’ve built several features: filmmakers can list their collaborators on their pages, automatically creating new profiles. As part of covering festivals or award events, we will create new film pages. But what if you worked on a film and haven’t been credited? And if you have, how do you claim your profile/film?

🎁 Claim a credit/film/profile

The system isn’t rocket science, but we’ve now supplied a few easy built-in prompts. Artists can now…

1. Request a credit on a film (sends a msg to the film owner)

   

2. Claim a film for those with no owner (sends a msg to SV support)

   

3. Claim a profile for those with no account (sends a msg to SV support)

Updates now show on your activity feed:

We're betting that these simple changes will help grow connections and more easily onboard existing filmmakers whose work may already be on the platform. It will also be a big assist to individuals like writers, composers, and cinematographers to claim credits for films to which they’ve contributed. Try them out and let us know what you think.

Go deeper into the world of shorts by joining our Discord community! Share your work, get advice, ask support questions, and hang out with talented creatives from around the world. —> https://discord.gg/uRFhqTEK

🪐 Shortverse Collections

The Best Short Films About Mental Health

I know! I’ve complained that programming based on made-up holidays is lazy. However, we take mental health seriously, and so for World Mental Health this Tuesday Georg produced a collection of films that deals with the theme. Fortunately, they don’t all take the subject seriously, with plenty of comedies included, including work like Short of the Year winner, The Voice In Your Head starring Lewis Pullman (Top Gun: Maverick), as well as plenty of new faves we’ve discovered on Shortverse.

🔍 Spotlight: The S/W Alums Shaping the Look of “Loki S2”

Love them or hate them, recent superhero TV shows have not exactly looked great. Frankly, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has gotten a lot of crap in recent years for the uninspired look of even their big blockbusters, but Loki on Disney+ has been the exception drawing widespread acclaim for its style. The first season was directed by someone we knew well from the UK shorts scene, Kate Herron, and lensed by Autumn Durald Arkapaw, but after the stellar work they did, both have made way in season two.

New directors Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson don’t have a huge shorts background (though they love the form—we run into them at Palm Springs Shortfest most years and chat at the Ace Hotel party) however, new DP Isaac Bauman does, and the 4-time S/W alum posted a very cool deep dive on IG about the changes made in the new season, covering equipment, styles, influences, and working with his collaborators.

Isaac first caught our attention as a collaborator of Saman Kesh in music videos and narrative shorts over a decade ago, and his career feels poised to take off, with two horror features he DP’d in theaters this year in addition to Loki. In his post, he is quick to issue Justin and Aaron tons of credit but also acknowledges the show’s “undisputed MVP”, Kasra Farahani, who carries over as the production designer from season one and also writes and directs an episode of season two.

Kasra is someone we also first encountered a decade ago through his exciting sci-fi proof-of-concept short, Noon. We instantly became big fans, hosting the online premiere of his follow-up short, Concerning the Bodyguard in 2016, which became one of the first shorts we relaunched our YouTube channel with. I was at the Tribeca premiere of his feature directorial debut, Tilt, which I think is underrated!

Kasra hadn’t directed again since but provided concept art for Marvel on Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and Black Panther in the meantime before jumping aboard Loki. The distinctive design of the show immediately drew praise and he did a bunch of press during season one for The Verge, Indiewire, and The Art Newspaper if you’re interested in the thinking behind the show’s style.

Whether or not this new season lives up to the promise of season 1 (episode 2.2 drops today) we’re stoked to see talents from the short film world shaping the look and style of one of culture’s biggest shows. Congrats Isaac and Kasra!