Brooklyn artist James Blagden created a terrific short film that animates former major league pitcher Dock Ellis’ entertaining narration of his infamous no-hitter for the Pittsburgh Pirates against the San Diego Padres in 1970 while he was “high as a Georgia pie,” or specifically under the influence of LSD. After retiring, he later worked as a drug counselor before passing away last December.

Sundance Channel recently sat down for an interview with Karin Diann Williams & Stuart Hynson Culpepper, creators of THE CAPTIVE. Watch THE CAPTIVE now at Sundance Channel Digital Shorts.

What was the inspiration for The Captive?

Karin: Believe it or not, we started with just the idea that we wanted to make a web series. We had an inkling that the microseries was about to find its audience and really explode as a popular form.

Stuart: We saw all the activity blossoming on YouTube and sites like it and knew a huge audience was there and they were wanting something beyond the user-generated content, something thoughtful and well produced. So we took the plunge. Part of the idea for the themes and action in The Captive came from studying the kind of person we thought were going to engage: someone fairly tech literate and independent in their thinking.

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Muzorma “is a short 3D animation film based on the universe of french illustrator Muzo,” and is surrealist mayhem at its finest. There are a lot of more light-hearted moments, such as the snail bike, that made me chuckle. However, keep watching until the very end, where the film concludes on a slightly creepy note.

Muzorama from Muzorama Team on Vimeo.

[Via]

While masses of hipsters, indie music fans, and even the HOVA hisself Jay-Z and Beyonce crowded into Williamsburg, Brooklyn to hear the Grizzly Bears perform live on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon this past weekend, another bear lives a decidedly less glamorous lifestyle as explored in the short film AND EVERYTHING WAS ALRIGHT. This film is about one outcast teddy bear’s attempt to escape the mundane banality of its life in what appears to be suburbia hell by going into outer space. Find out if he makes it!

And Everything Was Alright from Placeholder Films on Vimeo.

[Via]

Will Hoffman’s short film MOMENTS juxtaposes and stitches together isolated moments of everyone’s life into something more meaningful where the whole of all those experiences is greater than the sum of the individual parts. This film definitely sums up how I felt when I took my first bite the other day into a burrito bowl from [redacted]. It was a party for my taste buds.

The Astronomer’s Dream (2009) from Animalcolm on Vimeo.

Malcolm Sutherland’s latest animated short, THE ASTRONOMER’S DREAM is a trippy whimsical space odyssey with a unique art style.

When a hungry astronomer falls asleep while working on a problem, he discovers a solution not in outer space, but in the surreal food-chain of his subconscious mind.

This is definitely one to watch in full screen to experience all of its delirious goodness. Check out his other animated videos at his Vimeo site.

THE FIFTY FOUR is a short little film created by Richard Hernandez entirely on his iPhone. He gave himself fifty four days to shoot fifty four images with his iPhone during his daily commute on the 54 bus in Oakland for this project.

The Fifty Four from richard hernandez on Vimeo.

The Lemon Tree from William Campbell on Vimeo.

An eerie short film created by William Campbell filled with visual effect eye candy. He explains:

The Lemon Tree is a short experimental narrative. It addresses our constant hunt for perfection. The closer we think we are the more distorted our memory of it becomes.

An animated French short by by Clément Soulmagnon, Yann Benedi, Sébastien Eballard & Quentin Chaillet with a kind of wonderful and magical story.

Gary from Gary on Vimeo.

This lovely short, LAST DAY DREAM, takes 42 seconds to explore one man’s entire life through his own eyes. The film was written and directed by Chris Milk for the 42 Second Dream Film Festival in Beijing.

Last Day Dream [HD] from Chris Milk on Vimeo.

Full credits are on the Vimeo page.

[via Daring Fireball.]

Cute minimalist animated short film, “A Quoi ca Sert L’amour” (To what end is love?) from the ever talented Louis Clichy about a boy who meets girl, boy then loses girl, boy gets girl back, boy then loses girl again, but girl finds boy and finally boy gets girl. Note the visual double entendre in the merry-go-round scene. I also enjoyed the accompanying frolicking Edith Piaf tune.