Elephants Dream Released!
/ by Ton
Now almost all of our donation sponsors have received their DVDs, it’s about time to finalize the Orange Open Movie Project with the much anticipated online release of the movie and the studio production files.
We are all incredibly proud to present to you the world’s first true Open Movie:
The movie and all of its production files are licensed as Creative Commons, only requiring a proper crediting for public screening, re-using and distribution.
Note that the Elephants Dream DVD set remains for sale via the blender.org e-shop as a support product for future Open Movie projects. The Blender Foundation is committed to start working on similar projects soon.
Stay tuned, have fun, and surprise us with great follow-ups!
Studio Orange
Ton Roosendaal
Bassam Kurdali
Andreas Goralczyk
Matt Ebb
Bastian Salmela
Lee Salvemini
« Half a million downloads… and the ED Karaoke version! | Complete score available for download »
Just put a mirror of the downloads on my website for Portuguese forums, so you don’t get hit with a huge hammer.
Great news and thanks for this :)
— Rui —
For many years I have dreamed of having the source code to a movie to play with. Not just the script. Not just the tape. But /everything/. Elephants Dream is my dream made into reality. Thanks to Ton and the whole (and awesome) Orange team!
This is very sweet!!!! Thank you guys!!
(btw probably because I’m using an older version of firefox -1.0.8- but the page seems a little messed. Works Ok in Konqueror)
Awesome!!! Already have my DVD, but I think the new website design looks great. Thanks for adding more still images to the media gallery.
This new site looks nice!! A few questions about the downloads though.
Will the full size hd version be available on bittorrent? I think that’s the version a lot of people would want to try, but is too slow to download. Maybe you could at least offer a 30 second clip in hd resolution just to test whether their computer will cope before downloading the whole movie.
And will the production files be available for download? Or are they just a special treat for dvd buyers?
(I realise that they’re allowed to be distributed freely but most people would respect the work enough not to distribute it if asked)
Anyway I love the new screenshots, there’s so many I just can’t choose only one to set as my wallpaper. Nice work!
I found the 1024 w/ ac3 version on ftp yesterday, so… seeding :) Great jobs, men!
ChrisRX: Right now, there is no Bittorrent seed/tracker/etc for the HD version. If someone can download it and start it going, they should please post it here, so I can amend the download page with a link to it.
And yes, the production files are available! I just edited the download page with links to them then.
Cheers and thanks, I’m off to sleep.
Congrats on an awesome accomplishment. I got my copy last week and I love it! The slowness of the website is also encouraging – a hint of how stoked everyone is.
Thanks ;)
The new Site Design Looks Great!!
Thanks for Release!
Thanks a lot. You are making History.
I really like the new website design. Now that Elephants Dream is up in high quality versions, I can show it off to my friends who can’t make it to my house. :-)
I love the new HD frames. The “s5_proog_.jpg” returns a 404 error for me in Firefox and IE, though.
Congrats Orange Team!
WOW! At last I can see the movie. I am downloading now. It seems that video.blendertestbuilds.de has slowed down.
ChrisRX: All the productions files are available above Click on ‘The Production’. There u can download the whole Discs 1 & 2. If u want then u can download only the final production .blends from there also.
WOOOOOOOW at last!!!
Hi came back just to voice my one concern.
Ton has hinted towards another movie. That’s great, but, this should not effect the developement of blender. Due to Orange it has accquired many new features but the releases r coming at a far slower rate than before.
Hope from the experiences gained from ED, the developers will this time will chalk out a better schedule so that the release cycle is not slowed down.
Great movie indeed. Congratulations to the team!
HEY. what is the meaning of this. I had completed 39% & now suddenly the file has changed! I will have to start from scratch. Please see into this matter. I was downloading from the given link here http://xseed.bowiestate.edu/ED/ED_1024.avi
Congratulations. Great movie. I’m glad I waited and didn’t cave and watch the youtube version. Now I just have to watch it 20 more times to really understand it.
applegrew: dunno, but there is a way out. Download Tribler (http://tribler.org/) the bittorrent client that is hosting the movie (or any other). Then use the “File / Add Torrent (to non-default) location” menu entry to load the torrent, and point it to your partially downloaded file. Tribler will then figure out what parts of the file it can still use, and which should be re-downloaded.
And 3 cheers for the orange team, of course!
Congrats to the Orange team, and thanks for this redesign, it looks much better now.
*downloads movie, but wishes he could buy the DVD to contribute*
Sweet Jesus! Can’t wait to finish the download!
Great job!
For those who like HD-TV ;o)
http://www.tribler.org/content/Elephants_Dream_HD.avi.torrent
Thank God and Arno!
I love this new layout. I said it once and I’ll say it again, the movie rocks.
Sweet, I love it!
Downloading + Seeding the 1024 version :)
Thanks for the release :)
I hope to see more projects from you guys ;)
I thought it was okay. In general the animation was excellent, in other spots though there was something to be desired (ie. in the beginning when Emo and Proog are running along those platforms that randomly flip upside down, Emo’s running looked like it was out of a video game). I didn’t get the story, so either it wasn’t explained enough or there was no story.
Other than that, though, great work. There’s still a huge wow factor in some of those scenes.
Yeah orded the DVD plus the shirt.I got Elephants Dream featured as my wallper on my desktop, laptop and Sony PSP :)
I use Blender too.Its really nice to see what you can pull off with it. Hope you guys are planning a new project :)
Peace
Hey wow nice make over!
Yeah ok this is how to celebrate ED – bit of style :o)
Let us know some download statistics if you have time…
To bad there’s not a file smaller than 50 mb… Now i’ll have to wait 6 hours until i get home to see it… No wait! Only 5½ hour. But that’s way to long anyway…
Hi all!! Headline on CgTalk too!! Great work guys!!
Hasn’t been slashdotted yet however. Hopefully it won’t destroy the server.
Awesome job done – Congratualtions.
I can imagine how hard this was and really hope that your work will pay off in one way or the other. I will make sure that this movie will reside on my hard-disk for ages to come – as first open movie.
I wrote a posted a small article on this topic on my blog, as I did even before when you guys were in the process. If interested check it out:
http://linux.wordpress.com/2006/05/19/elephants-dream-world%e2%80%99s-first-open-movie/
I must admit that i’ve saw the movie on YouTube, that was awesome. But when I saw it yesterday on this site……WOOOOW! I think this inspire many people to start their own animation studio and work like this. And I’m also think that Ton is writing history with this open source movie.
I am looking forward to see more (Open Source) movies witch are made with blender!
Respect to the Orange team en Ton Roosendaal!
Danny de Regt!
Great news!
However I would like to see a torrent for the dvd images, too. You can’t download the production files since the server seems to be overloaded at the moment. (surprise? :)
The bittorrent downloads work fine, though.
Congratulations and thank you. I am speechless. Just WOW
At the beginning of the final credits (9m28s-9m47s) there are this white lines, growing like flowers out of the corners. Have they been made in blender (or inkscape)? Is the source for this nice work by Matt Ebb available too?
I found the FIRST game inspired by Elephants Dream:
http://www.flashmobile.de/apps/twinxed/
Enjoy
Nooooooooooooooooooo. The movie is so short! 10.53 min! I was just trying to make out what was happening then …credits! This is too short. I expected at least 30 mins. U can’t call a 10.53 short a movie.
The effects were great, but there were too many unusual body movements. It is too dramatic. And is there a story?. Maybe u named it Dream because only in dreams can such a sequence of things occur.
Summarily Speaking: Story & duration of “movie” bad. Music & effects score. Human movements need work.
Orangers. Please for the next movie first start with a good script. If u can’t think of any then arrange a contest OR use any famous (or just good) stories like Sherlock Holmes’ (well do make sure they r in public domain)….And pls. make a full length film not a short. I can wait for the movie for 1 yr, but can’t be satisfied by a short after waiting 9 months for it.
If anybody has any idea about what the story is about, pls. post.
@ applegrew: Watch it 10 times, that will take 1 hour, 45 minutes and a few seconds. I’ve watched it about 15 times, and I tink I understand the story now. :) Remember that it’s made by only a few people over a short periode of time.
@ OpenNieuw.nl Als je deze graphics geweldig vind (zijn ze natuurlijk) moet je de HD 1600 versie eens zien. En over de Blender ontwikkeling, ik heb gehoort dat deze film een flinke oppepper is voor Blender (en Ton).
Sagawee: Yes, it was done in Blender – same technique as the ‘snakes’ in the final scene, just using flat-shaded objects. It’s a pretty complex setup in that particular case, but the idea of it is animating taper curves, used for bevelling another curve object. The credits source file should in lib/titles/credits.blend and I’ve put a simpler example of the same technique at http://mke3.net/projects/tests/curves.blend.zip (fixed typo, whoops!)
cheers!
It’s incredible what Blender can do… I can’t believe it!!!!
Thank you guys, the short is wonderfull! I’going to read the documentation about the realization of it, to undestand how you made it!
Congratulations again!
Luca “Bone” Rocca
Using the torrents there is already ~4 TB (4 000 000 000 000 bytes) of movie completed. Winner is the file Elephants_Dream_1024.avi with +1.8 TB.
See the stats on the torrent tracker: http://jip.cs.vu.nl:6969/
And if this is only the completed torrents (more that 9000 total) how many will there be downloaded from the servers?
Luca Rocca: Did u say documentation? Where it is?
170 downloads and counting just from my website and only to the Portuguese community …
— Rui —
@ Matt: Wow, great example blend, thanks a lot!! Quite powerful those taper curves! I already love em!
If someone else is interested in this great example: http://mke3.net/projects/tests/curves.blend.zip (there was a littly typo in Matt’s comment)
hello, incredibly work , odd that it just tastes likes i want more :), but ok i think that in the next time it will be a bit longer.
Does someone has a torrent link to the full dvd? or just only to the production files? i ve watched the HD and its wonderfull you make a work to be proud of, the story has some leaks but is a great story, congrats
What is the story? I didn’t get it.
Dear Grandma, I havn’t seen you in soooo long. I really love your chocolate cookies. Have you seen that movie Elephants Dream? I just purchased it. Don’t watch it. The main character sounds like a child trapped in a fourty year old man. It scared me for days. You might get nightmares from how abrupt and disjointed the storyline seems. Furthermore, I don’t think your DVD player will play the discs, because mine sure didn’t.
On the bright side, it is really fun to watch muted and in slow motion. You will definately enjoy the making-of section. It features a charming young man named Ton Rosendaal.
P.S. Blender rox my soxorz.
P.P.S. It shoulda’ been “Elephant’s Dream”
Love, Bmud
Maybe more than one elephant had the same dream?
Just a comment about that orange2 maybe a comedy…
I am not sure this is a good idea.
It is fairly easy to make something to laugh at.
I do this all the time because I have mediocre skills.
Despite ED’s nice colours, sound etc.I think Blender still has something to prove animation wise.
It would be better to produce something along the lines of Lees Cyan Sun. I also admire a lot the style of the works like Hirayaman by ekakiya.How about next time we have some artists from Asian countries.
Just a further note or two.
Orange2 will need to be a genuine 20 mins long to satisfy both sponsors and audience expectations.
There should be much less time on new code next time and more on delivering an artistic work of best quality.
We need to think of ways to ‘sell’ the finished work to recover costs of say 12 artists for 1 year and also to publicise Blender as a genuine and different solution.
I am thinking Blender Studios could provide a short audio visual entertainment piece or background for the interval at a major sports event or concert with a major sponsors help – Google? Apple?…
think Super Bowl for example :o)
What’s up with the codecs? Bad bad bad!
1. The 1024×576 version says MP42 while it’s MPEG4 (DIVX).
2. The 1920×1080 version is MP42. Do you have even a remote idea about what’s MP42? It’s a Microsoft format, incompatible with MPEG4, which later evolved into WMV. An attempt at market domination. It’s supported by libavcodec, yes, but it’s not even an standard. 100% proprietary. Also rather old, one generation before DivX3. The worst choice you can make.
3. You used libavcodec to encode. While it provides good quality, I think the general consensus is that XviD offer better quality. Using B-frames would have been nice, and help slower machines (allowing them to hard-framedrop B-frames.)
I don’t know how to feel about AC3 audio. It’s not evil, but it’s far from free, just like MPEG4. Not that there’s much alternative, with Vorbis’ 5.1 brokenness.
The movie is good, congrats :) Be sure to supply subtitles, though; otherwise a lot of your audience will have trouble.
“Nobody”: thanks for the codec lesson. I’ve changed the 1024×574 version to note DIVX. That was an accident when we quickly had to make a lightweight frontpage.
Further I’m not much informed about the codec bizz… both the .avi files were created using linux tools by our team, and I just expected it to be “OK” then. :)
One lesson learnt is to at least involve expertise (or suppport from an open source video codec project) next time.
“Bmud”: we’ve shipped almost 2000 dvds already, and no report came back to me the disks didn’t play in consumer players… please contact me personallly (ton at blender.org) to check what could be wrong, maybe a certain type of product?
Hi orangers
I must say the design of the different locations in the movie is really great. I must agree with Masonmop and applegrew though that the story comes too short. I like the general concept of it, it is very theatralic, but I think you schould have rather concentrated on developing the characters. That would mean less locations, more time for dialogs (AND a longer movie). Now we come to the weak point, the mimics animation, which would be essential for more dialogs (I’m sure that it’s also the most difficult part for a CGI movie). The mimics that were presented in the film just wouldn’t be able to carry any more of the story, (in my opinion) especially those of Emo (Proog’s were a lot better in some parts, though still not convincing enough).
Another topic I’d like to mention is storytelling. Especially for a complex story like that there were some aspects that I was missing. For example in that running scene: a between-cut that would tell what they’re actually running from(whether it’s the birds or something uexplained), or when that door appears and Emo wants to go that way: a close up on him telling at least a bit about his reasons. This sounds like small and unimportant details but they’d make a great difference when it comes to motion picture storytelling. Also that scene when they’re thrown up in a barrel is poorly arranged, since you don’t really get that they’re inside until the barrel’s open. On the other hand if the intention was to raise tension by showing the flying barrel without knowing whether they’re inside or not, this also didn’t work well(there should have been more between-cuts on Emo and Proog in my opinion).
If I’m making an effort to write all these things here, is because I hope that you’re interested in this kind of feedback for your next movie.
Still on the whole this is(was) a GREAT and UNPRECEDENTED project which I’m sure helped a lot to develop blender and that has indeed (disregarding the above) delivered a great result which the whole blender community can be proud of!!!
Sorry, I was a little to harsh :) I was a bit shocked about the codec choice…
Some history (as I remember it):
In the beginning (circa 1999 perhaps?) there was a Microsoft codec which could do MP41, MP42 and MP43. These were the first MPEG4-like implementations available to the public, but were not conformant to the standard (perhaps the standard wasn’t even finalized yet?).
Microsoft allowed MP41 and MP42 in AVI files, but for the higher quality MP43 you needed to use their ASF container, which is proprietary, patented and generally undesirable too (not very well designed). (They prosecuted VirtualDub, which supported it, and as a result the author had to drop support – that said, I think nowadays they are more indulgent, in a hope to gain market share)
A hacker was unhappy with the MP43 restriction, so he hacked the codec to allow it in AVI files. Hence, DivX3;-) was born.
This Microsoft branch of codecs later evolved to WMV7, WMV8 and WMV9 (or WMV1, WMV2 and WMV3 as some call them).
Parallel to that, starting after DivX3;-) (yes, the name is “DivX3;-)”) Project Mayo was born, as an attempt for having an open source MPEG4-compilant codec. The DivX guys forked it and released DivX4, then DivX5 and later DivX6. These are closed source, but MPEG4ASP compatible.
Likewise, people still wanted an OSS codec, and XviD was born from Project Mayo. Like DivX4/5/6 it’s MPEG4ASP compatible. Also, ffmpeg, the library many open source apps use mostly for decoding (VLC and mplayer use it, for example), added encoding support too.
And that’s where we are today, as far as MPEG4 is concerned :)
So, basically, DIVX=DX50=XVID (implementations might vary on features supported, but modern implementations can decode everything, which is a very good thing – and this is also what standalone players support).
ffmpeg added MP42 encoding support “just for kicks”, since it was similar to MPEG4. I don’t think it was a good idea to enable it by default :-)
Back to real life though, almost everybody can play MP42, mostly because ffmpeg supports it and Windows comes with the codec. (Had you used MP3 audio, the file would work everywhere, even in a clean Windows 98 installation!) But it’s still old and undocumented (except for ffmpeg’s source code), so it makes sense to use newer options.
About playback, the Media Player Classic recommendation is good, but it won’t play the DIVX files by itself. It has internal filters for AC3 decoding, so it’d play MP42 using the Windows codec. But for DIVX/DX50/XVID you’d need ANY of DivX, XviD or ffdshow (a playback filter which uses ffmpeg).
Other possible playback recommendation for Windows could be MPUI (which is a nice GUI for mplayer that works rather well – and also includes mplayer itself) – http://mpui.sourceforge.net/
Finally, about encoding – as I said, ffmpeg supports both encoding and decoding from various formats, but XviD is generally a bit better for MPEG4. It supports more features and is a bit more tweaked, IMHO.
I hope that was more of less clear. And yeah, your best bet is to ask for help next time – I realize these things are rather confusing (and changing all the time!)
BTW, the 720×404 file at http://www.hdx4.com/?file=elephantsdream (“PSP, iPod video, and .3gp phone versions” link) has the wrong aspect ratio: it’s 16:9 but it has black bars letterboxing it, so it’s crushed vertically. I didn’t test the other versions. (See? HDX4 is another MPEG4 compatible codec, which can be decoded by DIVX/XVID/ffdshow and can decode content encoded by them)
And while we’re at it, a 1280×720 version would be nice, just right for those 1280xXXX screens out there, and more reasonable than 1920×1080 requirements-wise :) (What about posting approximate system requirements? The 1920×1080 version requires at least something in the likes of 3GHz, or dual core…)
Hi !
First, great job, a wonderful experience and a nice demonstration of the free software power. But why do you upload it in non-free format (like xvid and an ogg sountrack) ? And what’s more, in a non free container (you could have used OGM or MKV…) ! VLC read all that very well and under every systems, so it would be accessible to anybody.
I will think about buying the DVD, I just have to check if it is protected with CSS like the commercial ones (I could not legally read it in that case since I am under linux) of if it is not encrypted.
Congatulation anyway.
The website is still under intense load and yet nothing is said about the DVD on the temporay download page.
Let people know how they can support the project!!!
Collect some funds until you can. Let people know that by buying the DVD they will make next great movie possible!
I think you should submit this for an Oscar. Seriously.
http://aiwosc.oscars.org/aiwosc/
At last I got mi DVD, and got to see the movie!!!
…And I liked it very much!!!! The movie, the designs, the extras … especially the making of … everything (at least, everything i could see in one night) … Following, i will watch anotated versions.
Congratulations dudes … it’s a fantastic work!!!!
But I got one question … At the beginning of the making of, in the animation which is extracted from the teaser trailer, i can see a slight slowdown in the animation … is it an error in all copies, or it’s just my disc??
Once again Thank you and Congratulations, and please start thinking about following Oranges!!!
David: the DVDs are fit for all regions and not content-scrambled. It’s all open content for everyone to copy as much they like.
About movie codecs; I’ve answered that a few posts before… I’m also interested to find a mirror to host all original HD frames, so people can use it for other codecs as well. Unfortunately that’s over 20 gig of data (png) or over 100 gig even (dpx).
benoite: check the “credits” menu above, it has a list of the tools we used. For a next project we’ll definitely aim to maximize usage of free software for video, codecs, sound, and dvd authoring. But as said before, I also have to be practical… we’re a 3d CG open source project, that’s our main competence.
I just discovered this project… it’s wonderful to know such projects can bring such wonderful results. Compliments!
If there is another release I vote for the MKV container, I haven’t heard but good things about it (and you could easily put subtitles ;)
Great movie btw!
Orange team: The movie is great!
I’m only missing some more deep “Making of”, let’s say 3-4h of modeling/rigging/texturing/animating/… video tutorials. Maybe you might consider doing it in parallel to the book you are working on ….
To everyone that said the story is poor… I’ve showed ED to my girlfriend explaining nothing about it to her… she understood the plot at the first screening. … perhaps for whom has a more mature mind the plot is not so difficult (Perhaps we men are stupid and women will rule the world a day) ;)
Epsilorn, what do you mean she understood the plot? Do you mean the literal plot(i.g. there are two men talking to each other, then one hits the other on the head)? Or do you mean she understood what’s behind it all? Cause how can you or she know that that’s what’s been inteded by the makers?
What’s more important in a story like that, is whether you can make out something that’s really close to some feeling or exprience in your life. Was that the case with your girlfriend?
I was forced to see this film. Twice.
Looks cool, except for the animations of the faces and the running.
I didn´t understand the plot, but I do have some interpretation. I dont´t think Epsilorns girlfriend understood the plot.
@stan: I agree with your post. You are the best!
forced…Twice.
LOL :o)
I think the main failing of ED is that time that should have been spent on refining the animation and finishing other scenes was used up in stuffing around without a definite story to work on and trying to be productive with new code.I don’t know how much time but I guess 2 months lost? All things considered it turned out better than could expected given those conditions but I think there is a feeling of regret that ED could have been better.I don’t think anyone holds orange artists reponsible for that though.What was done was done very well.Thanks guys ;o)
Amazing work! My best compliments, guys!!!!
Incredible you did this using blender.
I hope to be able sometime to produce something like that… joining a team like yours, will make the task easier!!!
CIao!!!
Claudio
Can’t you read behind the lines?
He, He, He I got my account and my IP address banned at Elysiun!
I’ve only watched it once, but to those who are confused about the story, I agree that it isn’t very strong. My immediate interpretation is that the older man is not really ‘playing with a full deck’. He is seeing all this in his head. He thinks Emo is causing the negative images (that aren’t really there at all) and kills him, tragically.
Very, very cool visuals! Keep up this level of quality for the next project and you can’t go wrong. I am not at all disappointed. This is an exercise to push Blender to it’s limits and to inspire others. I feel it succeeds.
Are the other features of the DVD available elsewhere? like the documentary?
Epsilorn, it may sound strange to you but this “experience in life” (or in other movies, I must add) is absolutely common to professional movies. Some simple examples: when you whatch “Gladiator” the whole movie produces this sensation of bravery and heroism, a feeling which is very common to people. Or when you whatch Jurrasic Park you have this sensation of being followed, a feeling which everyone knows and which most people have experienced profoundly in their dreams.
These sensations are the real reason why some movies are loved by people and get prizes.
So, as I hope you see now, for this film, producing a story which is interesting and profound is only half of the job.
In my opinion in ED the whole situation just isn’t sufficiently well shown through the characters. That’s why I so much would liked to see better facial animations.
Yep, blender needs even better animation tools. Feets are often w/o sync with the ground (eg 6:41) :) I never done any animation in blender. Is there a ‘pin’ for part of armature ?
Anyway, great music, great voice actors, and really great heads :P
I can shut up ‘you need 3ds’ trolls :P two thumbs up!
I forgot about eyeballs :) Nice! (actually everything is perfect, besides small animation problems)
I misunderstood what you were saying stan. And while I agree that animation(both facial and body) in ED are crappy, what i was trying to say is that there are people (as my girl) for which the plot is understandable since the first viewing (that’s not my case by the way). Similar movies are the japanese “Akira” or “neon genesis evangelion” where the ending for me is still a mistery.Is that bad storytelling or hermetic poetry?
At first I stayed disapointed, mainly because it was so diferente of the Teaser Trailer, but then I see it 10 more times and yes… is good.
This is my opinion and just that:
I think that the main thing in a movie should be the characters, I think you focus to much on the world, in the sets and props. In the teaser trailer we could see wonderfull characters that only appear for 5 or 10 seconds in the final movie.
I could not feel the soul of the characters…
In pixar shorts you see that they don’t have outstanding sets, mutch of the times are totaly irrelevant, because wath we really respond to is to the character and is marking and unic personality.
Tecnely is awosome!! That’s right it is!
If it is a fenomenal showcase of blender power!? Yes it is!
If it is a gorgeous movie!?
No, is just a good one… and thats for a blenderhead,
because I show it to a friend that loves movies and cinema but doesn´t understand noting at all of CG or computers and prefers not to know how movies are made and he says that is a mediocre movie and I respect and understand is opinium.
Simply put : the new colors are butt ugly.
Jean
The first open movie! Awesome. I don’t understand the story but it does look cool.
I’m happy to create small versions with commentary track only to create small versions of the making-of, but then somebody needs to offer me space to upload it to.
Hi!
As already said in this topic (or maybe in an other one!) I think that Elephants Dream is a really good movie, and I have liked it a lot.
Well, I have waited before speaking about the movie story until now, because all ED sponsors hadn’t yet received their own DVD.
Thanks a lot again, and congratulations to everyone having worked on this movie and also to everyone having made it possible in any way.
As I have read several messages saying that the story was poor, or difficult to understand, I’d want to tell you what I have understood for my own. It is only my point of view, and I’d be very pleased to read yours!
I have to say that I have special reasons to like it, because I’m a lucid dreamer.
I have studied dreams for at least 20 years on my free time, and I have written a book about lucid dreams.
Even being often lucid while dreaming, I early noticed that some characters, supposed to be created by my imagination, seemed to be really autonomous.
I have encountered some of them who were sure that they were sleeping and dreaming and that “I” was the product of their own imagination!
I called these characters the “Rebels”.
In fact, our counscious and our unconscious can be considered as two independent characters, playing or fighting together in the dream world.
When we are aware that we are dreaming, we (our conscious) believe that this is sufficient to do everything we wish to do! This is really an error, because we share the environment with our unconscious, and most of the decor and events are made by “him” !
In the movie, Proog seems to believe that he was “here” first, and wants to show the world (called the machine) to Emo. In his mind, Emo is a visitor, a newbie.
For my own, I see Proog like the dreamer who thinks he is lucid, and believes that because of that he can master the situation.
At the end of the story, the unconscious, enbodied by Emo, shows to Proog that he doesn’t master anything.
Thrown into confusion, Proog hits Emo’s head and the dream stops…
That can be understood as a metaphor : When the plans of the unconscious are discovered by the conscious, often the dream stops.
I think also that there are many symbols in the movie.
At the beginning, there are hundreds of cables and plugs, establishing connections. They can be seen as synapsis establishing neuronal connections. It is the starting point of a bad dream, a kind of nightmare in which Proog flees from un unknown danger, like in many nightmares.
The danger itself has no importance. In a night mare, you generally have to escape. The escape is the main goal,and you do not have time to think about what is really the threat!
When Proog and Emo arrive at the end of the strange footbridge, there is no more way to go. Apparently they can’t escape, but the dream has just started and it is not time for a end.
As often in dreams, the unconscious quickly makes a change in the story, introducing a new scene. This is the job of the typewriter robot: he symbolizes the work of the unconscious writing the next scene of the screenplay.
The keys of the typewriter appear under the feet of the characters, and allow them to continue their way, making a link over the nothingness, until a new scene is constructed…
Much more could be said about the movie, but I’m sure that many people will write some comments here in the next days, so thats enough!
Just few more things : Have I said that the animation was great ? That the texture were very good? That I liked the music ? That the whole movie was Great ?
Philippe.
Best comment I seen on the story. :)
Sigh, I’m very glad to see there are still people with fantasy in their body. Nice piece Philippe.
I’m posting here for the third time now, not because I want to show everyone how bad this movie is(it surely isn’t!) but because I think that it’s really important to discuss some things which could have been done better. So that they are done better the next time.
Philippe, lets assume that everything you say is true for the story. First you’ve got to acknowladge then that it’s very complex, not only the plot, but the whole situation the characters are in, their perceptions, their expectations etc.
The first decision you should do then (when developing a concept of storytelling) is: do you want the audience to understand(or better feel) these aspects? My personal answer to that would be yes, cause I don’t see any other way of telling it. (Surely not through plain text)
Your second decision would be then to choose(or better develop) a “camera style” for this specific purpose. That is, you decide(in general) what to show, how big(ig: close up, total), for how long etc. Of course, you don’t show the same things all the time but you should make a decision on the preferences and on a basic order(or better said style), which you repeat(with variations of course) throughout the movie. This “camera style” is most important if you want the audience to feel(subcontiously understand) what is going on. (and that’s what you want to do as I suppose, after answering the first question).
To find that style, expecially for a movie like this, is most difficult. The only thing I am rather certain of, is that it was not well enough found for ED, since you can’t really feel the situation.
What I would do, is take a look at other movies(or even books). The only similar(not much though) situation I can think of in a film is in Gladiator, where he’s got these visions of of dying and “coming home”. A door opens to a field, a hand strokes the wheed, a woman looks into the distance waiting for someone, a child running towards the camera. This kind of storytelling is called expressionism, the pictures don’t even have to relate to eachother, our brain makes a connection for us and delivers us a feeling. I think expressionistic style of storytelling would be fitting for many “dream movies”, though with ED I’m not sure.
You could also take a look at Kafka, how in his dreamlike stories he describes some things very closely and other almost not at all. This seems to me to correlate to the many close ups you find in expressionistic films.
But there are also some things that don’t fit in your interpretation. For example, if Emo’s “the subcontious”, controlling the situation and “playing” against Proog, why would he so dramatically say: “I can’t see it, cause there’s nothing there”, what’s the drama for? Or when he makes the monster appear, he doesn’t look like someone who’s showing his real face to me. He rather seems like someone loosing his nerve and being glad that he can hurt the other.
Please don’t get me wrong, I liked the film! The graphics and colors are great. And the music too! But it’s not that good that you’d say: I wouldn’t change anything in it.
Phillipe:
That was a very insightful interpretation. Please write more. I am interested in what you think about the door sceen, the elevator, and especially the little room that Proog encloses them in and becomes violent.
My impression is that elephants dream is sort of literally a dream. I think it is possible that the Team watched a lot of movies and developed an almost unconscious feeling of what story they wanted elephants dream to tell. In other words, I think that the Orange team might not even know exactly what they meant (just like we might dream a dream and tell it to someone without knowing what it really means), so Phillipe, your interpretation may actually clarify som things for them.
If anyone thinks I’m stupid to think that the Orange team didn’t know exactly what they meant, listen to the documentaries. They conflict with eachother on what the meaning is! One of them (I think Ton), for example, says that when Proog hits Emo, Proog’s reality is restored. But one of the other comentators says that when Proog hits Emo, the background goes back because Proog’s reality is disappeared now that he has no one to share it with.
stan:
All of Phillipe’s comments make sense. Reread his comment on the subconscious mind creating “rebels”. So Emo saying he can’t even see it and won’t trust it is the ultimate rebellion to Proog. Maybe Proog in “real life” is a control freak, and so he has nightmares of people who don’t understand him and won’t follow his leadership.
PS. My post didn’t appear, do posting again
what a fantastic atmosphere I love the bots n the creatures….u did a great job on that 1
excellent……..
Well, I have not seen Gladiator, but a quick search on Google shows that it is a 2h30 duration movie…
It is obvious that in 2h30, it is much easier to tell a story in detail, using a given style.
A short movie must show the main lines, and may leave more areas in the shadow, and more place for the imagination of the people watching it.
To answer to your question:
why Emo would so dramatically say: “I can’t see it, cause there’s nothing there”, what’s the drama for?
The unconscious (or subconscious) is a part of Proog, not really his enemy. I think that Emo wants to help Proog until the end, telling him that what he sees is not real. But Proog doesn’t understand.
That’s the reason why the subconscious changes his method, and decide to show Proog who has the power. It does it without violence, only using images.
The violence comes from the conscious part of Proog. He hits Emo two times.
This said, this is only my own interpretation. I don’t pretend that it is the only one. I haven’t written the story and I may be completely wrong! Though, I find this interpretation satisfying enough to make me loving the movie.
Philippe.
@Philippe: Wonderful interpretation, thanks alot for sharing it!
Me again!
Joeri, Thank you for your comment about my comment!o)
Stan, I think that there are some clues showing that Emo wants to help Proog to leave his nightmare, and enjoy the good part of the dream world.
At a moment, in the projectors room, a door appears on a wall. There is some light behind it and a happy music coming from there.
Emo would like to bring Proog behind this door, but Proog refuses five times! He only sees danger and traps.
As the unconscious, Emo does what our unconscious is supposed to do for human beings: trying to help Proog standing his life!
Philippe
I have to correct myself. I didn’t mean Expressionism, I meant Impressionism.
Mixed it up, sorry
Phillipe,
I love your interpretation. I had thought up different parts of this, but yours really brought everything together!
Thanks again, you’ve really helped me understand at least one aspect of ED.
And to emphasize the point about this being a short; This was a very ambitious project. I don’t think they accomplished all they wanted to, but I also think they did a terrific job nonetheless.
I think the movie would have definitely benefited from another couple weeks of work, but that would have defeated the purpose.
Also, even though they may seem super-human, these people are people. Thus, even they need a break! ;)
In short, I thought 80% of the animation was excellent, there were a few rough spots, but they were still pretty good.
The music was fabulous, as was the sound.
The environments were extensive and deserve an A+.
Great job, ED team!
.this is an excellent movie, but for some reason i feel its slightly too short
.the animation is truly amazing
.this is certainly something you dutch people have to be proud of, other than those awesome cartoons
.mad props to ED
Hi,
At first sorry for my English, then…
great thanks for so much work! :)
I bought my CPU one week ago* and didn’t know it can have problems with HD version playback :( (there should be some kind of warning :> ). However, I am happy even for those few seconds which I can see played smooth :D
*and I did it specially for 3D animation ^^ blender’s tutorials engaged!
stan:
I think you hit the cold spot there. At least for me.
Why is this movie CG anyway when so little of the possibilities of changing perspectives or morphing decor is being used?
It’s the poor part of the movie to me. Maybe it’s done on purpose, but if it is then I don’t like the (visual) language of it. I never understood the position of the vieuwer in this story. We are seeing things as Proog is seeing them, all the way, very strict, untill the end. But why? Am I Proog?
Don’t you just love how Polansky makes the people in the cinema try to look around the doorpost in Rosemaries baby? Or how spaghetti westerns make you feel the dryness of sand in your mouth? Or, how in every shot of china town there is water.
I’m not sure why I miss this here, but I suspect it’s the choices of composition; very hollywood, very ‘lets not use cg camera’. But also a bit boring (except the elevator scene) and not a good use of space, or conveing real emotions.
In “Pawn decending a staircase”, from the same director, I did get this feeling of how the character lives in its surroundings, so I was wondering what went wrong here. And if I remember correctly the usage of camera was inventive in that short. More personal then in chicken chair.
Gladiator is my favourite movie, from my favourite director (somebody give that man an Oscar!). But I think the weed scene(s) only work as a contrast to the other scenes. Good use of rotating colorspace to let the audience feel the path to afterlife.
I think that is missing from this short. The decor is fantastic and super detailed and inspiring, but hard to relate to for me.
If we live in this perspective that we are not aware of of being only a perspective, how come the movie makes it so obvious
I can imagine the story is not about a dream but about reality. Personal reality. And the space to let somebody else have his own. If this is the case then most of the responses about this movie are very funny. About how the movie would have been better if it would have been adapted to their reality…
-Joeri
Nice. To bad I didn’t understand anything.
Hi guys!
Great job! It’s really cool. You can be proud of that!
Best regards,
Damian (Wroclaw/Poland)
Hi!
Morris, this is a comment for you.
You said: ” Please write more. I am interested in what you think about the door sceen, the elevator, and especially the little room that Proog encloses them in and becomes violent.”
I have already written about the door, but here under are my thoughts about the other points:
I think that for Proog, the lift is like a rescue pod, taking him away from the core of the machine, in a more safe area. We see a red button for the first time in the lift.
But because of Emo’s action (the unconscious action), when they arrive in this supposed safe area, the environment appears to Proog not as safe as expected.
Proog knows that he has some power, but he doesn’t know how much power he really has.
He doesn’t understand who is really Emo, and when Emo insists to do something by himself, like opening the door, Proogs begins to understand that he is really loosing the control.Using his imagination, Proog makes appear the red button on his stick.
Here I have something to say about Proog’s stick. You can remember that he had dropped his stick when they arrived at the end of the footbridge. But when he needs it, he has again his stick in his hand.
I see this stick like a stable object. A stable object, in dreams, is an object that you always have with you, in any dream, even if you don’t notice it before you need it really.
Generally, it is an object that you carry with you every day in the real world. This object may be your glasses, you watch, your hearing aid, dentures, wig or anything else which is strongly attached to your person in the real life. It can also be an object linked to your job, like a badge or a gun if you are a policeman, or an helmet if you are a fireman… Maybe Proog needs his stick for walking in the real life. For my own, I never keep my watch for sleeping, but I always have it in my dreams, and sometimes in lucid dreams I use it as an emergency button, to get some help when needed !
A stable object has a symbolic strenght giving some power to the lucid dreamer.
So, the button on the knob of Proog’s cane can be seen as a second emergency button.
The world of dreams is not a stable and predictable world, even if you are used to visit it. I believe that Proog doesn’t know in advance what will happend when he’ll have pushed the button.
This button must be used in extreme situations only, and Proog pushes the button almost by accident when he becomes very hangry and nervous.
Then appears the green room. I see it as a “shelter” but it is not so safe than expected by Proog… there hare some holes in the walls that he tries to repair.
Proog says that everything is perfect, but really, I think that he wants to make Emo think that it is perfect.
Proog probably thinks that if they are both two seeing the world the same way, then the world will be more stable and safer…
Philippe.
Or how about this for a spin… is the story but the conflict of reality? Complex worlds… The end seems to be near or chasing (typewriter scene, instant death). I believe it to be saying: it is not possible to dream reality, for a dream is not to be controlled. As soon as a dream is grasped, is it but a dream or a fantasy? The lack of information in the plot was hugely IMPORTANT, for in a dream, no-one is quite sure of problems, reality in the plot, and the goal. As soon as the reality check occurs, it becomes not a dream but reality indeed. A conflict of reality, for if a dream is reality, what is reality? A dream can not cross into reality, thus the sharp ending.
Nice animation blah blah blah, it was incredible!
Joeri, thanks for your post. Feeling the (so said)”dryness of sand in your mouth” is exactly what I’m missing in this movie.
Karsten you’re right that in a dream the whole information is not important. What is important in my opinion are the single sensations that add up to a dream. And the only time when I had a dreamlike sensation during the move, was in this room-scene. And I attribute it to this effect of lenslike distortion and to the close ups(on Emo, on Proog and on his hand before it hits Emo etc). This is an example of “camera style”, that’s going into the right direction. But sadly it’s the only time and as such it has a rather strange effect and doesn’t really fit into the rest of the movie.
Philippe as I said, everything you say might be right. But you don’t FEEL any of it in the movie! And if you can’t feel anything after the first screening no amount of interpretation will ever change that.
Well, for my own, feelings were present! Maybe because I’m used to study the dream world for many years from the inside, being often lucid in my dreams.
The situation appeared obvious for me the first time I watched the movie, and I had the same feelings that I felt in many dreams.
I agree that there are not many camera effects, but it is the same in a dream, or at least in my dreams.
Maybe it is only the fact of chance, but this movie seems to be custom-tailored for me !o)
Philippe.
Hmm good interertation. You forgot to mention that lucid dreams appear more clear and realistic than ‘normal’ dreams, explaining the not so dreamy camera lens and the dreamy effect comes when Proog looses controll over his own dream-reality. The holes are the beginning as proog tries to correct the image, thus perhaps loosing more controll by focussing on individual holes. Then when he notices he gets emotional. Without focus the lucid state will be lost. Perhaps Proog’s anger makes his loose controll completely and regains control at the end. But all he has dreamed up so far has been lost and the surroundings are ‘dead’.
Now Proog has to start all over again and he will… because he is convinced it is there, the big mysterious machine… It’s in all of us… the possibility to dream, and the possibility to (maybe unwillingly) to destroy them. (But perhaps without taking a change, the dream will not come in existance in the first place)
Perhaps you could write a (big big detailed) article / book: Elephants Licid Dreams and let us all be able to read it :) Also a philosophers and lusic dream expert audio commentary track would be great.
Thank you for your comment LOGAN! And welcome to the lucid dreamers club!
For the book, I already have written one about lucid dreams, in french, and nobody read it, so I have no urge to write an other one in english !o)
For the audio track, I fear that my frenchie accent would make everyone laugh…
So, I will keep my few free time for blending and dreaming!
Philippe.
I’ve got the 815MB 1920HD from BT links and it won’t play on any player, not even those recommended, it looks awfully choppy and has no audible sound. Do I need extra codec?
@ROUBAL: I wish I could read your book, I have about 3 books about Lucid Dreaming. (Lucid Dreaming (S.Laberge), Creative Dreaming (P. Garfield) and “De kunst van het Lucide Dromen” (The Art Of Lucid Dreaming (C.M.Den Blanken))
Movies containing lucid dreaming: Vanilla Sky and some other dream movies) and even an episode of Startrek Voyager had a story about being lucid in a dream, false awakening, etc.
Hmm maybe we also need some Dutch funny voices and others to do a commentary track. (or just in French then english subtitles :)
Keek on dreaming and blendering!
@DLr the HD version also plays choppy on my PC. I guess mainly because my monitor resolution is not 1920x and secondary due to the speed of my PC. I watched the 1024 version and it played very well. Now I found the 1280 avi on the DVD so I now have the perfect one for my PC. (I run my desktop in 1280×960)
No audio? with videolan rightclick and in the menu there you can select different audio streams.
Play your movie on a screen resolution that is equal to the avi you want to play for the best possible quality without resizing.
Watching the HD version on a 1024 screen resolution requires your pc to downscale the movie in realtime thus making it more choppy than need be.
Hope this info helps :)
Amazing movie! We need more! :-D
Technically, visually, acoustically, conceptually this film is stunning. However you may have denied yourselves of making a wider impact by neglecting the plot. Just a little humour, a little focused direction would have made this much more enjoyable to watch as well as being a masterpiece of production. This is why Pixar is where it is today – because they knew that the beauty of 3DCG and cinema in general is its ability to depict something interesting, then increase its impact through the production values.
I hope the next one will take this more into consideration.
Excellent! However, it would be nice if you would post MD5 and/or SHA1 sums of the files on elephantsdream.org. I know its best to use bittorrent, but I can’t use it here.
Another place to get a version for Ipod video: Elephants Dream for ipod.
This is an amazing work of art. When I first watched this I felt many different emotions such as sadness, curiosity, and anger. I was furious that Proog hit Emo like that and the world that was portrayed in this film is very visually stunning. After watching it once I felt inclined to watch it again! I couldn’t get enough of the visuals and music. Thank you so very much for making this film. Great job everyone!!!
As a long time Blender user, I’m thrilled to see that you guys managed to get this made. I did have a few comments and crits though, so if you’re interested, you can read them at http://emtilt.googlepages.com/theblenderorangeproject%3Aelephantsdream
Hi !
I’m providing a 100mbit/s french mirror.
It contains barely everything except the raw 20+ Go material.
(So yes it does include the HD video)
here’s the link :
http://dl.freecontrib.org/elephantdream/
The bandwidth is way too underused. Have fun.
Sincerly,
Philippe Mironov
Hello Everyone,
I think this project really rocks! It’s great, it really is.
Bud when I want to download the dvd .iso it gives an error for the file: “Video_only_pal.part1.rar”
Yes, I downloaded al the parts before I attempted to extract the .iso image, bud every time it gives an error for part1, I used 3 different software tools and I downloaded the part1 file several times, bud nothing help’s, can someone
PLEASE FIX THIS!!!
The way it is now, no one can do something with it!
Hello Again,I fixed the problem by downloading the files agian from Philippe Mironov.
He posted his link to the files a few posts above.
Thanks Philippe!
Great blog, keep up the good work. If you have a minute visit my site at http://www.musicexplosion.biz/unlimited-psp-games/phc/
I don’t know what to say. You have captured the substance of my night visions, and shown its likeness to me in a mirror.
Please, I donwnloaded the 800 meg AVI and can’t get it to play. Is it AC3 Audio? Virtualdub will load the file but it can’t figure out the audio compression used? I have 2 AC3 decoders installed, FFDshows internal and AC3filter from sf.net but none seem to be able to decode them.
Seriously, can someone help me? And no, using Videolan player is not a valid solution, it *should* be playable in any player (I use zoomplayer) and I will not install some software just for this one movie when I can play everything else jsut fine in Zoomplayer. You also need to consider people using HTPCs, they can’t just swith over to zoomplayer for some odd file.
So again, if someone can help me that would be great.
My problem was different from Ink’s, I think. All I was getting in Mplayer on Windows, gxine and VLC on Linux, was a grey background. The audio, however, was fine. The mplayer codecs needed are I think liba52/AC3 for audio and ffodivx in ffmpeg (ordinary MPEG-4). Needless to saw, the QuickTime versions will probably only play under Windows XP or Mac.
My PC is fast enough (500Mhz) to play DVDs and XviDs, but it wasn’t until I downscaled it to 400×225 using mencoder that I could watch it properly – and it still looks fine played full-screen. Maybe a smaller download (mine is 76M) could be made available for those with slower PCs or slower connections?
As for the film itself, it remided me a bit of Svankmajer or the Brothers Quai. I got the impression of a giant brain in the first scenes, but no idea of whose it was. IMHO any lack of vividness is secondary to the lack of clear storyline.