¶ Short of the Day #2: Brain Lapse

[Perception de Ambiguity]

"Short of the Day" is the daily discussion of a short.

Tasks:
1) Watch.
2) Discuss.
3) Send me your suggestions for the next Short of the Day per PM, along with links to the shorts and comments, questions for the other users to think about, or info about the short.

Detailed project introduction: here

---

Brain Lapse (Jake Fried, 2014) [iCM] [IMDb]

https://vimeo.com/108753054
Length: 1 minute 00 seconds[/color]

Suggested by: monty


"Hand-drawn animation with ink, white-out, coffee and collage."

[Jake Fried] is a prolific drawer/painter/animator, creating epically complicated short clips that he calls “hand drawn experimental animations”. Watching these pieces is quite the experience. His style is so complex, and each frame packed with so many textures and details, you must be careful to blink at the right time, so as not to miss anything!

Even more impressively, he creates such hypnotizing animations from the simplest materials – coffee, water, ink, gouache, and white-out. With titles like Brain Lapse, Head Space, Down Into Nothing, The Deep End, Fried is inviting us into his own mind, and we soon see just how dense it is inside there. Layers of mathematical lines build into a background scene and reveal a head peering out from behind them. This then transforms into some other domestic space, or rather a non-space, where objects appear and disappear into the jungle of lines and cross hatching. Eyes, hands, heads, plants, moons, triangles, and landscapes feature heavily in Fried’s work. He says of his own work:

‘Raw Data’ took about four months from the first drawing to the final film. My work is not truly narrative – the medium is the message – but for this piece I knew I wanted to experiment with metallic-gouache, technological imagery and sustained head-on portraiture. I would say it’s generally about man vs. tech and a sense that the animation watches you as you watch it. My work is not really pre-planned; it becomes itself through the process of making. I fundamentally believe that art making should be a “discovery” process; otherwise I’d have no interest. Rather than just executing a plan, I want to learn something new or follow some unknown path.

- link

Text from links provided by: monty

[Perception de Ambiguity]

They are still paintings that are gradually changing. This isn't anything new. Depending on what you have seen you may be reminded of Clouzot's 'The Mystery of Picasso' or early Lynch like 'Six Men Getting Sick'. Animator Aleksandr Petrov ("The Old Man and the Sea") used a somewhat comparable technique for his films, instead of traditional (cel) animation he painted with slow-drying oil paints on glass and changed the existing painting to create the next frame and so on. Arguably Jake Fried takes it to a new level, at least in terms of density.

Here is an attempt at an overall interpretation of 'Brain Lapse' in terms of a narrative:
The film starts out with what looks like some old industrial cardboard thingy. Nice texture, in any case. So this abandoned industrial environment grows wild until fences go up and apartment complexes are built on the grounds. Some artist type living in one of the apartments withers away because of alienation / the lack of nature around him. He commits suicide (by cutting his head off, as one does) and encounters the place's spirits of nature past. Then he becomes one with nature and over the next million years all the matter disappears and only the spirits survive, until even they perish, dude, I have no idea what this fucking thing is about...

Nice sound design, too, by the way, it helps to give the film a more textured feel.

[Armoreska]

please post an icm link as well if available
https://www.icheckmovies.com/movies/brain+lapse/

[Coco LaBerge]

please post an icm link as well if available
https://www.icheckmovies.com/movies/brain+lapse/

True got to get those sweet sweet checks

[Coco LaBerge]

I liked it, a lot of work has gone into it. I watched a few of the others too. All the same kind of introspective, free association style of animation, featuring some kind of person.

[Nathan Treadway]

I generally like things like this, but, this one doesn't really go anywhere, it seems.

[SkilledLunatic]

I watched it a couple of times. Technically is incredible. As others said the sound design is great and really gives the animations this new layer. The drawing are detailed and the way they morph into new things is impressive. However, I think trying to create an overall narrative is futile. You're supposed to take meanings from drawings not some overaching story.

[bal3x]

Impressive work, cannot say it's really a favorite, but very well done no doubt.

[joachimt]

I watched it a couple of times.

Me too. There's so much changing at the same time, your eyes just can't follow all that's going on.

[monty]

I watched it a couple of times.

Me too. There's so much changing at the same time, your eyes just can't follow all that's going on.

The overall effect sure is hypnotic - it sucks you right in. I also agree with what's been stated above - there's not much point in looking for a narrative here; rather it's about the phantasmagoric experience.

I strongly recommend you guys to check out my very fav work of this artist, namely Night Vision: https://vimeo.com/139169629, https://www.icheckmovies.com/movies/night+vision-2016/

[Carmel1379]

Thanks monty, I enjoyed that one a lot, and the director's other work too. Those wonderful ambient sounds are the ones that tend to be very effective for me.

Brain Lapse - Fragmentary nature of the world and/or perception of it by an equally fragmented cognition ("brain lapse"). Geometrical arrangements deemed impossible, fantasy fused with reality, all having an eerie technical-textural-material dimension. Memories superimposed. Time slices superimposed, simultaneous construction of one thing and destruction of another thing. Horizon, sun, beach, tree, fence, house, room, person, mirror, city, mountains, change, end.

Night Vision - Eye of the artist (god, sculptor, creator, architect of the world), different visions, death.

Mind Frame - Anxious person moves across space. Parts of his body don't catch up, he's always a "step behind".

Headspace - Ditto 'Night Vision', but body also undergoes transformations - perception (=creation) of outside changes arrangements of the body too; death.

Raw Data - Alcohol, drugs, computer screens, plugs, annihilation of one person or different people across time.

Nothing to say about his other shorts. I like how they're all one minute long, but also how that's not a proper minute with respect to our awareness, since perception of time is different under different circumstances. In this case there's a lot to take in, but simultaneously they're films, illusions, so when one snaps out them one feels as if the experience was really short. So how much is one minute, really? Surely: 1 2 3 4 5...

[Cynical Cinephile]

It looks amazing, the level of detail is uncanny. It moves a bit too fast, so it's difficult to absorb everything. I don't know if it has any sort of narrative and I'm not even going to try to come up with one. That doesn't take away from the enjoyment.

[Perception de Ambiguity]

So how much is one minute, really? Surely: 1 2 3 4 5...

Only Bergman knows the answer to that question. But I agree that in the case of these films one minute feels very short.

Thanks for sharing some interpretations.

[brokenface]

I liked it, sorta intense doodling. Disordered mind, neurons firing in a hundred directions.

[Eve-Lang-El-Coup]

As others have said, the technical aspects are basically as close to perfect as you can get. I wouldn't having some of the stills on my walls in a frame or perhaps have them buzzing around morphing into each other across separate rooms in separate frames. It would be a little creepy I think, a little distracting but cool.
It's interesting to look at how his style and the depth of his works has improved over a few short years.

[jiraffejustin]

A lot of work was put into this film and it looks good because of it. I think though, like I do with some of the Brakhage shorts I've seen, I just don't know if putting a lot of work into a film makes it a good film. It's certainly not a bad film, but it's not quite over the hump for me. I can't quite put my finger why I don't like it more, but I'd give it 5/10.