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Quickdraw Animation Society
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Jesse Schmal Strauss' Sub! (2000)

Ten seconds into Jesse Schmal Strauss' Sub!, I was already 100% sold on it.

Illustration of three men sitting next to each other on motor cycles, the one on the right being closest to the camera. Each man is wearing a white jumpsuit with a black stripe across the chest, starting with "1" with the closest man until "3" on the farthest man. The 1 man has bushy eyebros and a 5 o'clock shadow, he's looking inquisitively to the camera. His arm is bent and resting on the second man's shoulder. The second man has a bowl cut, a unibrow and 5 o'clock shadow. His arm is around the shoulders of the third man. the Third man has short hair with a long fringe and looks confusedly at the camera

NOTE: This Monday short was originally posted on March 12, 2018. We are re-uploading Peter Hemminger's original Monday Shorts until further notice.

Ten seconds into Jesse Schmal Strauss' Sub!, I was already 100% sold on it. The style is immediately striking, crude but still completely charming. Nine minutes later, I was still blown away. The absurdist humour means the story, such as it is, is consistently surprising. The artwork is surprising, too, from the memorably offbeat character designs to the beyond-loose rotoscoping during the soccer sequence. It's inventive in the way that only student films really are, where you can see the artist revelling in the freedom that animation provides. I don't want to spoil it through over-analysis—just watch it and see.

syn. An italian piazza is invaded by an unlikely...invader.
Senior film at Rhode Island School of Design.I

dir. Jesse Schmal

2000