All People Is Plastic

In the history of cinema the modern big city has often served as a screen onto which dystopian fantasies are projected: The idea of the urban space as a cruel, Moloch-like machine drove Fritz Lang´s sinister vision of the future, Metropolis (1927), in which the mass of slave-like workers is forced into the serfdom of assembly-line labor. Harald Hund´s 3-D animation film All People Is Plastic refers to both this image of the city as a machine of discipline and Jacques Tati´s criticism of the modern age, for whom corporate culture serves as a working world of enforced conformity. In the world of All People Is Plastic the figures have long been the result of mass production: Hund animated his figures with conventional 3D character-animation software?so-called Default People (standard figures)?and fit his matte-gray prototypes, schematized as either male or female, into the slots of a futuristic office world.
The film´s story begins on the weekend: The gray mass of standardized office workers pours into a monochrome urban conglomeration of cookie-cutter apartment buildings; they march in formation to identical cars, disappear into identical apartments, and are then transported to an amusement park. When a few of them leave the pack and run into partitions, jump off skyscrapers or move toward the edge of the city, their behavior turns out to be not individual protests but design faults in humanoid prototypes. King Kong, who climbs a skyscraper in the amusement park, appears in this context as a nostalgic reference to a vision of big cities in which external threats could be dealt with collectively. In Harald Hund´s brave new techno-world, architecture is a polished surface which no longer requires any kind of action.

(Alexandra Seibel)

Translation: Steve Wilder


The film begins ata Satuday 6 PM. With a message from computer that whishes a good weekend, they gray mass of standardized office workers leave the office; they march in formation to identical cars, disappear into identical apartments, and spend the Saturday evening in front of a TV set. On Sunday, they are transported to an amusement park and enjoy the programmed pastime. When a few of them leave the pack and run into partitions, jump off skyscrapers or move toward the edge of the city , their behavior doesn´t attract any attention. The film is a satire of enforced con formity of city dwellers today and a criticism of the modern age. In the film, the beautiful blue sky gives a clear contrast to the gray tone and somewhat cold electronic music. Of we can afford to look up the blue sky and the splendor of the setting sun, our gray soul may gain some color.

(Hannah Chu, 3rd Green Film festival in Seoul 2006)


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Retro-futurism in form and content...

Retro-futurism in form and content, created with scissors and a computer. The buildings, the vehicles, the people: they are already familiar to us, in fact they seem old-fashioned. Nevertheless, we are seeing the future. There is work, transport and leisure. If something deviates, it is an error in the system.
(Rotterdam Film Festival)
Orig. Title
All People Is Plastic
Year
2005
Country
Austria
Duration
12 min
Director
Harald Hund
Category
Animation/Computeranimation
Orig. Language
No Dialogue
Credits
Director
Harald Hund
Concept & Realization
Doris Krane
3 D Animation
Andreas Prockl, Doris Krane, Michaela Rentsch, Merlin Wyschka, Felix Knoche
Production
Amour Fou Filmproduktion
Executive Producer
Harald Hund, Paul Horn
Available Formats
Digital File (prores, h264) (Distribution Copy)
35 mm (Distribution Copy)
Aspect Ratio
1:1,66
Sound Format
stereo
Frame Rate
24 fps
Festivals (Selection)
2005
Locarno - Festival Int. de film
Hof - Internationale Filmtage
2006
Triest - Alpe Adria Cinema - Film Festival
Graz - Diagonale, Festival des österreichischen Films
Paris - Némo Festival
Istanbul - Int. Short Film Festival
Linz - Crossing Europe Film Festival
Brooklyn - International Film Festival
Seoul - SeNef Net & Film Festival
Kalkutta - Kolkata Film Festival
Osnabrück - EMAF - European Media Art Festival
Sarajevo - Int. Film Festival
Seoul - SICAF
Amiens - Festival Int. du Film
Barcelona - L’ALTERNATIVA - II Mostra Internacional de Cinema Alternatiu
Wiesbaden - exground on screen
Sitges - Festival de Cinema Fantastic de Sitges
Weimar - back-up festival. new media in film
Gran Canaria - canariasmediafest
Norwich - AURORA International Animation Festival
Vilnius - Tindirindis International Animated Film Festival
Ljubiljana Animateka - Int. Animation Film Festival
Trebon - AniFest - Animation Film Festival
Rotterdam - Int. Filmfestival
2007
Wien - VIS Vienna Independent Shorts