The Duel

July 1, 2005 3:59 AM

En Garde! Start your Friday with the Duel, a beautifully animated short film (with great music to boot!). Requires Quicktime.
posted by Verdant (18 comments total)

impressive. The music is straight out of a feature animation and the fighters are nicely expressive.
posted by Sellersburg/Speed at 4:38 AM on July 1, 2005

Animation:Master kicks ass for character animation. Well, that, and years of practice.
posted by Scoo at 6:04 AM on July 1, 2005

The style is more than a little reminiscent of a certain incarnation [flash] of a popular series of games. Which isn't to say it's not well done of course.
posted by popkinson at 6:10 AM on July 1, 2005

That truck driver's crazy, he's been trying to kill me, I mean it!
posted by tss at 6:38 AM on July 1, 2005

What a waste of some perfectly good island classical temple ruins. Vain, self-serving swashbuckling bastards...
;-)

Great stuff! Created partly as an experiment in developing a fast-rendering, flat-color look, and partly as an homage to all the great swashbuckling films. Succeeds at both.
posted by Shane at 6:47 AM on July 1, 2005

I like the little crabs best. Nice post.
posted by OmieWise at 6:56 AM on July 1, 2005

The blue crab's best performance ever!
posted by oddman at 7:02 AM on July 1, 2005

Animation has great potential for duels and swashbuckling and stuff, it's a pity there isn't more stuff like this, where every move is nicely thought out and the choreography is well done. It beats the hell out of non-animated animated battles as seen in saturday morning cartoons. It takes more work though, which is presumably why it's not common.
posted by -harlequin- at 7:56 AM on July 1, 2005

Forgot to add - it beats the hell out of most live-actor duels too. Nice job. :)
posted by -harlequin- at 8:02 AM on July 1, 2005

Sort of reminds me of the duel between Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojiro.

What great animation! Looking on their site, I see that they did cut scenes for Halo2 as well. Nice to know their skill is being used in good places.

Questions:
Do you folks think that they used captured human movements? When the two-sword guy is moving around, he looks so natural!

Fencers: what kind of sword does the guy in black have? Is it just a pointed weapon or would that kind of sword have an edge as well?
posted by redteam at 8:29 AM on July 1, 2005

My gosh, that's absolutely fantastic--that's just absolutely delightful. The direction is wonderful--every shot is perfectly chosen.

I bet it gets an Oscar nomination.
posted by yankeefog at 8:37 AM on July 1, 2005

...where every move is nicely thought out and the choreography is well done.

*thinks of old 'Net classic...*
posted by Shane at 8:38 AM on July 1, 2005

redteam: It looks like some kind of late-model rapier. So it might have and edge, but it might not. (The quickest blades sarificed the edge for less weight to get more speed).

I have no clue as to whether motion capture was used, but so much of the movement was animated beyond what a person can do, and didn't seem inconsistant with other movements that if they did use motion capture, they integrated it very well.
posted by -harlequin- at 8:40 AM on July 1, 2005

By the way, poking around at the filmmakers' website, I found two earlier films they did: Puppet and Java Noir. Neither is quite as polished as this one, but you can definitely see the sense of humor and directorial skill in them.
posted by yankeefog at 8:54 AM on July 1, 2005

Fun! This makes me want to seek out old movies like this Tyrone Power vehicle and the definitive Zorro.
posted by of strange foe at 9:00 AM on July 1, 2005

Great fun to watch!
posted by fenriq at 10:40 AM on July 1, 2005

"There is something you should know..." "What?" "I am not left handed EITHER!"

I always loved the duel b/t Westley/I. Montoya in The Princess Bride
posted by rhythim at 2:09 PM on July 1, 2005

That was terrific! Thanks Verdant.
posted by LeeJay at 2:28 PM on July 1, 2005