Short Film Showcase: Austin Taylor’s Death & the Robot

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A lot of people contact us with their short films to share, and one of the most creative to cross our path recently is Death & the Robot, Austin Taylor’s 4th year thesis film at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

Taylor directed, animated, and co-wrote with Alex Thompson, who co-produced with Julia Festa. The music is by Tom Hauser with sound design by James McDonough; Chase Shultz photographed.

Using traditional stop-motion animation with puppets printed by a Dimension 3D printer alongside complex computer generated imagery, the film demonstrates an unusual and evocative mixture of animated elements to serve the film’s narrative.

Taylor has since gone on to animate the opening title stop-motion sequence for “American Horror Story: Freak Show,” while Thompson is just finishing up post on a sci-fi/fantasy short he wrote and directed for the producer of Cabin Fever and is gearing up for two more: a Vietnam War-set horror film called Black Dragon and the other a dark sci-fi thriller titled Going Home.

So, with Death & the Robot we could be seeing the start of two very productive careers.  Curious?  Check out the “heartbreakingly sweet and dark… Burton-esque” short below, and learn more by “liking” Death & the Robot on Facebook.

Synopsis:
Bored of their stagnant existence, two lonely souls leave their safe havens behind and discover one another, yielding an everlasting legacy that will forever change their dying world.

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