Yes, He Parachutes

May 31, 2010 3:46 PM

Primavera by Victor Novikov. WALL·E checks out the scenery. [slv]
posted by netbros (9 comments total)

well, I'm not sure why a WALL-E would travel around the world or celebrate Christmas or parachute -- I think this might be better using a different robot toy -- but the execution was gorgeous. Very nicely filmed. Thanks for sharing it!
posted by Solon and Thanks at 3:54 PM on May 31, 2010

Nice piece of video... good accompaniment to beautiful music... a few "huh?" moments, but nothing rose to the level of "wtf?"... glad I got to see it before Disney/Pixar shuts it down for IP violations (and I'm sure posting it to MeFi will make that inevitable event happen sooner).
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:02 PM on May 31, 2010

Not very impressed, here. Kept waiting for some kind of coherent story. In essence: toy robot celebrates Christmas, wanders around some nice landscapes, stands looking at others on a bluescreen, does a few stunts, finds a toy car, and drives it some kind of Wall-E convention. It's just sort of random bits of film thrown together.

Nice nature scenery, and I love the album he pulled the soundtrack from (already have it), but overall, meh.
posted by Malor at 4:28 PM on May 31, 2010

Hmm. Appropriating a character from a Pixar film is a pretty bold choice, and probably shouldn't have been made unless there were some intent to have "Primavera" respond specifically to the Pixar film in question. I don't know if there was any such intent in the director's mind, but if there was, it didn't come across in the final product, which simply uses the character as a "lonely robot". And I'm pretty sure a "lonely robot" is what "WALL-E" was about in the first place. So this becomes, essentially, a low budget remake of a Pixar movie, and not a terribly compelling one.
posted by Ipsifendus at 10:16 PM on May 31, 2010

But ... he was only lonely -until- he went to the beach and the ocean brought forth an electric car for him. Then he got to the parking lot and discovered he wasn't alone after all.

Could it be that simple? It could. Unless you need -epic-.
posted by Twang at 3:56 AM on June 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

I saw as being within the context of the actual Pixar film and Wall-E is going about his mission on the earth all before his "girl" finally arrives.

But in the meanwhile, there was some nice cinematography (the camera he's using, a Canon PowerShot SD1100, is pretty amazing, to these eyes, on my aging laptop), good camera work and movement, good lighting, nice images (the scene with the candles was lovely). And he did most of it himself. As a portfolio "reel,"

I'd hire him as a camera man.
posted by Skygazer at 12:03 PM on June 1, 2010

Err...must have more coffee...
posted by Skygazer at 12:04 PM on June 1, 2010

From the comments on Vimeo, it looks like he used a Canon EOS 5D Mark II (us$3000+ with a lens) to shoot the actual video. I think the PowerShot (around us$300) was used to make the "making of" photos on flickr. Not that the powershot isn't a nice little camera, but that eos 5d is really something.

I liked the film a lot. The shot setups and editing were really nicely done. It really works well with the music (which I appreciate being introduced to -- I'll be looking for more by the composer.)
posted by TwoToneRow at 3:01 PM on June 2, 2010

Thanks for the correction. (That's a big difference.)
posted by Skygazer at 4:53 PM on June 2, 2010