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In 2003 New York-based digital design and production
studio Charlex embarked on a series of creative experiments that
led to the production of their first film, the animated short
'One Rat Short'. With a stellar 20-year history in the advertising
industry, company founder Alex Weil, who wrote and directed the
project, led a relatively small CG team through the challenge
of marrying compelling storytelling with compelling imagemaking.
A labor of love, the melancholic tale has already received industry
accolades with an impressive 'Best of Show' prize at Siggraph
2006 Computer Animation Festival. To date the film has been an
official selection of Cannes' Shorts Corner, the Melbourne International
Film Festival, Africa's Golden Lion Film Festival, CineVegas and
the Los Angeles Film Festival.
Compared to the 30-second commercial format that Charlex specializes
in, the newly formed CHARLEX FILMS team reveled in the possibilities
of creating a relatively long format project. Putting in endless
hours building up and taking apart the story of a rat's misadventure
in the city, the creative team consciously worked to avoid anthropomorphic
sentimentality. Mimicking the quality of hand-held cinematography
typical of live-action films the short presents a modern tale
of 'star-crossed' love that is set in dual worlds of dark and
light. The hero rat follows the mesmerizing ballet of a discarded
food wrapper from his dirty black urban world into an unfamiliar
blinding-white laboratory world. Aspiring to capture the bittersweet
emotions he remembers as a child watching the classic short film
'The Red Balloon', director Alex Weil worked to create a beguiling
adventure of unrequited love within a very unorthodox context.
The unique and very filmic nature of 'One Rat Short' is the springboard
for Charlex Films, which is looking to parlay its interest in
gritty and contemporary content into the development of an animated
feature. The 110-person studio, with one of the largest computer
animation facilities on the East Coast, is set to become an independent
player within the realm of animated films.
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ABOUT THE WRITER / DIRECTOR:
ALEX WEIL is the award-winning executive creative director and
founder of New York-based "design and build" digital
studio CHARLEX. As a designer, storyteller and technical innovator,
he has delivered breakthrough moments in digital imagemaking for
over 25 years.
From pioneering work with multi-layered video effects for The
Cars' 'You Might Think' video (netting the young director MTV's
first ever Best Music Video Award), the Emmy award winning opening
for Saturday Night Live, the Grammy nominated '90125' long form
video for the band Yes, to scores of advertising industry awards
for over 300 of the top Fortune 500 companies, Weil has become
synonymous with the aesthetics and language of digital communication.
Today, Weil remains extremely busy as ECD at Charlex while also
completing his first film, a highly stylized computer generated
films that he describes as "CG Noir."
He lives in Manhattan. |
