WE HAVE DECIDED NOT TO DIE - FULL VERSION FOUND!
CLICK: Music Videos CLICK: Ne-o CLICK: Short Film - B3
B-3 doesn't end up playing. Instead, the full version of Askill's WE HAVE DECIDED NOT TO DIE plays. I'm assuming it's here because Ne-o helped with all the compositing/vfx work...?
Again, this is the most award winning and talked about short film of the year. I think Res magazine has dedicated four issues to this piece already.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....huh? what? did I miss something? No? Okay. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....
yeah why don't we all just watch "Street Spirit" again?
I don't really like street spirit that much, nor do I think it has anything in common with this short film thing, besides the slow motion stuff. But that's all street spirit is really, I never understood what all those nuns (?) and bugs and that bloody guy had to do with anything. I think that Mr. Glazer just thought that the slow motion thing looked cool, and it did, for the first 30 seconds, but he didn't offer much more than that. He's capable of so much more.
And I also didn't like or understand this short film. A girl falls out of the water, and a couple of epileptic guys with some matrix effects. Ok? Is there some divine meaning behind this? Exactly what awards did it win, and why, oh why?
in Street Spirit: the shirtless boy approaching a dog without fear Thom falling backwards onto a car and then the guy jumping up between the 2 cars is derivative of the UNKLE video as someone pointed out.
I think "Street Spirit" is the best music video ever made.
Is there somekind of symbolism in street spirit i missed? The short we talk about is really boring and it fit perfectly in the christian air we breath tough. Not only it's boring it pretend to be "clean", "pure" and "holy" the kind of shit for selling makeup i guess.
is there any way to save it to disk when they're in flash?
Well, um, I never looked at it that way before. Thanks. I need to go to film school or something.
your all idiots. We have decided not to die is brilliant. just because it has similaritites to street spirit doesnt make it a copy. nothing is completely new , we all copy to some extent. and these videos dont need a plot or a purpose. the aesthetics can guide the viewer, it looks good. That what Andy Warhol showed the world, there doesnt have to be a story, the art can be in the creation and the aesthetics. Maybe you just call hate it because its better than anythign you have done. I know sometimes i get jealous and pretend i dont like it. it looks great!!! so let ,me get this straight, if i ever use slow motion i am just copying street spirit? so if i ever use normal motion who am i copying? we can all use the same effects in different ways. damn. arrogant.
I actually didn't say anything about this copying street spirit, no one did really except maybe captainmarc if you interpreted his comment that way.
What do you think is so brilliant about this?
i like it. it's simple. it's very well executed. i also think it creates an atmosphere. that's pretty rare nowadays. judge askill in 5 years. he just started his filmmaking career.
We Have Decided Not To Die...is well, both completely amazing and kind of boring at the same time
The thing is, if you don't have a direct meaning behind the images it becomes somewhat weak. I understand that some people will connect it to an experience and it then becomes powerful in relation to that event or emotion. This is like a lot of abstract art. It's not wrong or bad, it's just open and floating there for you to make it what you will. On the other hand, if you have an intended meaning and it is skillfully and clearly executed, it can really leave a lasting impact.
There is a quote by Aristotle:
"Tell me and I'll forget, show me and I'll remember, move me, and I'll understand"
I would say flip the last line so it says: "Make me understand, and I'll be moved". This applies to WHDNTD. The closest we get to meaning is through associating the title with the people featured. But there is still a lack of information needed to really get something concrete and meaningful from it. Instead, what we have is a music video of sorts.
To me the Street Spirit video is actually somewhat along the same lines. Lusk, I think you have attached meaning to it through what you feel are clear symbols. I'm glad it's so clear to you, I wish it was for me. Instead, I see it as an amalgam of cool slow motion shots and speed change shots set to a really powerful song. There is a some song related symbolism but it doesn't take me down a clear path...I find myself far more moved by the song than the video.
Now in art there really is no right or wrong. Only what is. As Ghandi said: "There are as many religions as there people". And this is true of art as well. Who am I to say this isn't powerful when it may have changed somebody's life? I'm not, I believe it IS a beautiful film. Daniel Askill is obviously talented, and it is great filmmaking...but it's meaning is still vague unless you attach your own subjective ideas. Really, what we have here is just visuals and sounds - you supply the meaning.
Now imagine if there was a story behind each of the three segments? Or if they were based on real events, or perhaps it was revealed to be something personal from Daniel's life? It would be like when you see something one way, and then you are told something and you see it a comepletely different way. Just like the drawing of the old lady which is also a drawing of a young woman. Lusk, you actually gave me a chance to enjoy Street Spirit from a new perspective in this same way. I didn't necessarily agree with your asessment, but nevertheless, it was suddenly new.
I guess after all this, if nothing else, that is the beauty of art. With or withour intended meaning, it sparks a million fires in a million different ways. As many fires as there are people.
I think I just contradicted myself...Damn ART! sheeesh.
PS-forgive me for quoting Ghandi and Aristotle in the same post. A bit pretentious I know.
I watched it again to be fair and there's this kind of terry riley/steve reich music in it. That is really unbearable. THE USE of it is unbearable it make me think of ambient like enya or deep forest (please note i'm great fan of s.reich music but its use is so cliché). Lusk you have too much studied.
Wow--I thought this was a remarkable short film. It didn't make any sense in any sort of literal way, but the images and music combined in a very powerful and hard-to-articulate way. It reminded me of Kubrick, in some ways. Admittedly, I'm not always a Kubrick fan, because I find it hard to watch thise kind of slow, abstract thing for two full hours--but for a short film, it worked beautifully.
wow....cunningham, glazer, aristotle, ghandi and finally kubrick. how about bergmann, ozu, tarkovski or god?
Kubricks films are about the social evils of humanity, not comic book superman transcendence...
not everything shot in ultra-slo-mo is derivative of "Street Spirit" - but as I said, it's the very very similar situations - (read my earlier post).
another video that comes to mind is P.O.D.'s "Alive" by Francis Lawrence - the one where a split second car crash unfolds over the course of the song - whatever you think of that band, it's a very well-done video (Francis Lawrence doesn't get nearly the amount of props he deserves cause he does a lot of pop)....
I agree LUSK is interpretting "Street Spirit" as he sees it - that's great, but there is no "answer" or linear story. I love the video because it captures the mood of the song so well, and doesn't override one's initial reaction to the music. The visuals mean as much or as little as the lyrics do:
Rows of houses, all bearing down on me I can feel their blue hands touching me All these things into position All these things we'll one day swallow whole And fade out again and fade out
it's all figurative words and images, there is no literal interpretation.
killakillafornia - I don't think anyone hates WHDNTD - it's just not that mindblowing - you can say "nothing is new" but then we see something like Gondry's Gary Jules video and are reminded that there are still plenty of unexplored ideas out there.
Wurstbude, now that you mention it, I thought this short film was like "Tokyo Story" crossed with Genesis Chapter 1 with a dash of "Wild Strawberries" thrown in.
Seriously, I'm probably one of the few film geeks who is not a rabid Kubrick fan, so the comparison didn't seem too over the top to me. Now, if I had said this guy reminded me of Orson Welles or David Lean...
In any case, I agree with the guy who first posted this short film here--it's not a masterpiece, but the filmmaker is one to watch.
Just saw the short film. Bill Viola meets Chris Cunningham -- I feel quite awful putting the two names in the same sentence. The only moment that has something to it is when the last boy jumps through the window -- that very moment, those few cuts. The rest is empty and meaningless. The video equivalent of those self help books on spirituality you see in airports and supermarkets. Bill “I am God and know the meaning of Life” Viola must be proud of having influenced another bore of a video filmmaker. Of course it's very pretty. "captainmarc22" seems to be onto something about that Gondry/Gary Jules thingy though. Although not a great fan of Gondry myself, whom I find somewhat lacking in the visceral department, his video for Jules is a very simple concept that actually conveys a strong mood and even some meaning.
Ok the link doesn't seem to work anymore, can anyone tell me where I can see this that has evoked such discussion?
Go to the "Academy Films" website and look for Daniel Askill's name in the video directors' section. The link doesn't work but if you get in there manually you'll be able to see it.
During 'Between', I didn't like the guy having the spasms or whatever. I thought it looked stupid. In any case, The beginning was nice but it was overall pretty dull.
In regards to meaning, and at the risk of becoming the next recipient of heated remarks, I offer only an opinion. It appears to me, that along with the title, that the types of deaths chosen (drowning, falling, crushed, etc) are the types of not only mortal deaths, but also the feelings of death that come often in many people's lives. For example, rising to the top of a corporate office and feeling as though we're falling, or being engulfed with problems and feeling as though we're drowning, feeling two heavy destructive forces accelerating to sandwich us, so on. Also, the fact that they all put themselves in those situations seems to fit this theory. She jumped in the pool, they stood there while the cars went back and then sped forward, he rose in the elevator to reach the high window. Here's where the title comes in to play in my opinion. at the last moments, just before death, they "decided not to die". Method: being almost completely naked i.e. stripped of outward projections, letting the most inner qualities and aspects of themselves come out instantaneously regardless of how weird it may look to others, and rising out of whatever "fatal" situation they put themselves in. Then again, I could be completely wrong - is art in the eyes of the artist or the viewer? Perhaps both.
DANIEL ASKILL DO A FOLLOW-UP TO THIS: I still don't want to/am still deciding not to die.
