In an amusing and sad short, S’ghetti Plane, our sincere, misguided protagonist dreams of becoming a commercial pilot but works as an airport spaghetti vendor. He encounters a successful douchebag school friend who invites him to a motivational conference.

This short feels like it was probably created in Google SketchUp—a consumer 3D program that was, at least at some point, free and available to all. I have the feeling the creator knows what he’s doing and could make something high production value if he wanted, but still, it shows how with the right angle and motivation, the simplest computer tool can be an amazing storytelling device. This is more compelling than a lot of garbage Netflix series I’ve watched lately. In fact, you should pitch it, Zach.

Don’t know how to make mouthes move? No problem! Just add some sound effects, smart editing, and compelling camera moves, and you don’t even notice it. Though far from reality, I deeply enjoy how corrupt and varied the faces are in this program. It’s taking that original cardboard South Park aesthetic to another level.

The fun titles, and canned music in the beginning reminds us how midi changed the world by allowing simulated full-orchestra dreams to be realized, and we see in this short how a free 3D tool can do the same for cinema dreams. Maybe our protagonist can use a flight simulator?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=os1eqiO_WyY&t=2s

This recent video from Andrew Thomas Huang is stunning. It does something rare in media—it combines a vast variety of production values (we saw this a bit recently with Twin Peaks: The Return). The title, Flesh Nest, is written in tweaked out photoshop default brush, the artifice is entirely revealed to us in the opening moments of each ‘level’ as we see the greenscreen set. We can even see the software behind the 3D overlay at work when the tracking points—points in the footage that the program uses to determine the depth and location of objects—are revealed. Yet, when the all of the elements are fully layered we are in another universe, despite being immediately aware of its falseness.

The sound design is playfully jarring, and I haven’t seen 3D tracking points aestheticized so well before. It’s another way of showing the latticework behind a 3D layer, without just revealing the polygonal mesh. The way these armies of destructive robots envelope the practical mounds and tubes lining the scene is alarming.

Where are we? In the clouds, towards the end of a red-eye, looking out of the window of our plane—and then, the most primitive of spheres, surely a friendly one, appears and promptly sheds itself into our morning coffee cup.

It seems our handle-less saucer is filled with a dense array of sugar cubes. They flip and toil into a blank Rubik’s Cube—always intricate, always solved—then, a momentary wall of 60s stock photography from seemingly nowhere (an advertisement for the ideal breakfast) precedes the emergence of a smooth, droid-like character. We zoom/enhance into the granular detail. The cascading! The flipping of limbs! His wand divining new shapes that rear and plunge like breaching whales. Intricate, multi-dimensional pendulums clack in his face to keep the time, a metronome that keeps us alert for our lack of caffeine. Seconds pass.

What is our mission exactly? It doesn’t matter. It’s only a moment, or in this case, about 8 minutes of moments neatly stacked into a rhythmic vision. Why do we breath? It doesn’t matter. Concentrate on the film. We are watching some stunning, bespoke three-dimensional renderings. How are they made?

I have no idea how Piotr Kamler, born in 1936, made such an out-of-time masterpiece in 1993—as Groundhog Day lurked around the corner, plastering the walls of cities with its dopey clock poster. Is it partially digital? The specular shine on the text looks notably mathematical, though filtered through film. Still, I like to instead imagine that the author had seen these ‘3D’ graphics and, in an attempt to make remake them—much like cargo cults mimicking western machinery—etched them through ceaseless manic labor.

The droid summons an entire fortress of cubes that ruptures and settles. The sphere moves back out of our line of vision. The skies are clear. I can get on with my day. Though, I would welcome this clockwork each and every morning until I can see it as clearly as the artist did and finally move on.