Goobees: animated candy action-horror short.

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Today on Boing Boing tv, GOOBEES, an animated short that reveals the horrific reality behind contemporary candy production:

Candy canes glisten, green frosted hills sparkle, and battered steel weapons glint in the setting sun. Tensions flare on both sides of the battlefield. Gumdrops glare with hatred at the Chocolates. Chocolates wait with confidence, eager to slaughter their opponent. High above in the crimson sky candy corn vultures circle in anticipation of the devastation to come. On a far away hill bright white eyes wait. They wait...

Created by four graduate students in the Texas A&M Viz Lab: Seth Freeman, Michael Losure, Patrick O'Brien, and P. Antonio Piedra. For more on "the making of" -- Link.

[#1 posted by mancko , March 12, 2008 11:46 AM]

Colonel Sweeto is weeping somewhere: "when will they learn? WHEN...WILL...THEY...LEARN???"

[#2 posted by Evil Jim , March 12, 2008 12:55 PM]

It's really tacky to stick an ad in the middle of a video that's only three minutes long (as with all BoingBoing TV.) ESPECIALLY if it's a short story like today's animation. If you absolutely must include advertising stick it at the beginning or end of the video. As it is I just click 1cm ahead on the progress bar to skip past it anyway.

[#3 posted by Draconum , March 12, 2008 2:42 PM]

But this ad was very... awesome?

I am pretty sure that they used sound effects from Half Life in there somewhere. Could be wrong though.

[#4 posted by franko , March 12, 2008 4:21 PM]

i'll be the one to third the mention of how annoying and evil it is to stick an ad in the MIDDLE of a video. if this is the way online advertising is going, i'm going to stop viewing online videos altogether.

but, back to the topic at hand...

...uh, so, the candy we buy from the vending machine is... RENDERED candy?? **ohhh, i feel nauseous**

[#5 posted by Xeni Jardin , March 12, 2008 4:51 PM]

Hey guys,

regarding the ad formats -- yeah, so this is just the standard, automated ad insertion format we use on BBTv, and it's well-suited for BBtv episodes where there are clearly separated A and B segments, perhaps even two separate stories being told. I agree, though, the format did not work very well with this episode, which really should be told without interruption. I think next time we encounter something like this, we'll figure out how to break the ad insertion format, because lord knows we don't want to take away from the viewing experience.

So, sorry, and we'll try to figure out a way to deal with this better next time.

I don't know if we'll abandon the format entirely -- I am not a fan of pre-roll ads at all, the mid-roll seems like a pretty happy medium most of the time. I'm open to suggestions, though.

XJ

[#6 posted by Evil Jim , March 12, 2008 5:07 PM]

Thanks Xeni! I really don't mind so much when the ad is between segments but certainly it can be done better with animations like these so as to pay respect to the content.

[#7 posted by franko , March 13, 2008 12:17 PM]

i'm cool with it being between two separate segments, too. this one made me think it was over for a sec.

[#8 posted by kstop , March 13, 2008 12:21 PM]

Why was my question about the CC licencing of this podcast deleted without response? It wasn't a completely idle question, similar issues are starting to come up in work (the CBC's new media dept), and I was genuinely curious.

[#9 posted by Anonymous , March 21, 2008 2:15 PM]

I'm suprised how little was said about this wonderful short. This is some amazing work here. Having dabbled in this field, I know what an incredible amount of work this requires.

Not to get hung on the ad, but I would prefer a pre-roll over an inserstion.