What up, Internet? I want to welcome you back to Eyes Wide Open, your bi-weekly jump into the strange and twisted world of animation here at the clubhouse…
This week, the video is Tidy Monster by Tim Marchant. It shows a descent into the madness of the mind of an unseen character and comprises of 1 voice, 1 chair and 1 room. The video begins with a man’s voice talking quite calm about the chair, suddenly the chair starts floating and the mans voice becomes more nervous and paranoid. The chair hits the ground as if nothing happened and he tells you to forget what he said, as the video carries on you understand this character is trying to describe his feelings of an altered mind state while dealing with the symptoms that come with having one. He seems to wrestle with how much of his reality actually exists, eventually the mood of the character and the video take a down turn, becoming more aggressive and eratic and the animation follows suit.
The animation in this video is good, but it is more about the video as a whole, as an experience. There’s a dark quality to it that tears it away from being put in the same classes as the brightly coloured shape shifting trippy animation you are use to seeing and instead has a more serious note to it. Tidy Monster won the 2007 Grand Prix award at the University of Hertfordshire’s ‘Film Day’ event and worldwide acclaim. In addition to Marchant, the short is narrated by Ben Williams and written by Pete Marchant with audio by Tom Player.
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Don’t fall off the world… and when you’re through to the other side, remember to keep your Eyes open Wide!
