Brilliant concept and short!
"Fair trading ?"
Awesome!,
I love the scene where the little guy with his cockleshell meets the huge cargo ship. 
The movie’s style is outstanding!
marcuso
#8
I liked it. Very nice feel to it. Didn’t quite get the end though, the bigger boat thing…
Blurisere
#11
WOW amazing, funny work. reli got da message through and cant believe u managed to do this, whilst doing all your other projects. 2 thumbs up for da finished work and 2 toes up for the time management. lol
THUR
#12
Hi,
Thx for the great responses, guys.
Reactions like that pay off the 5 18hour/days I pushed to reach the deadline.
Worked about 2 full weeks in total on this. You can feel that I was running out of time, when you look at the coffee machine sequence - some editing sloppiness, not fully rendered frames that seem noisy… but I’m happy the end result, the fact that the film made it to the letterbox in time and especially that the story comes across nicely.
The little guy competing with the big cooperates.
I hope to find out this week if it won.
Besides my contribution for a good cause, this was also a very good research for 850 Meters - my first (stereoscopic) shortfilm that is now officially funded by the VAF - flemisch audiovisual funding.
Fair trading is not only a good excersie for the look and style I’m directing 850 in, but also for the pipeline we are currently prepping for that. Vegard and Mr Fori himself are supporting this production and are currently developping stuff in Messiah to help creating a (hopefully jaw dropping) fully within Messiah produced short film. 
More on that later - I’m starting on the teaser this week. We’ll keep you posted.
Grts
j
Tama
#13
Wonderful work! I really like the look and style of this video.
However I have to add that the message is quite blurred and not at all clear.
Still dig your work on this one.
Thanks for sharing it with us!
jtvergarav
#14
I’m not sure I liked the charater too much, but the message is very clear.
Also, you have a very good story telling style, specially in The Plankton Invasion.
U know how, where and when to use the cameras and music.
I watch a lot of crappy short films time to time over the internet. Sometimes they have good characters, sometimes very nice lighting or plot, but the thing that lacks most is the story telling part. U have that, and I think that’s not very usual, at least in the animated media this days.
I’d really love to see a feature coming from u in the near future. Best of luck man
Nice Style
Tama
#16
Maybe to you it is but not to everyone else, so therefore it isn’t clear enough.
I showed this to folks and it was interesting to hear what their take on the “message”
was intended to be and the interpretations were not unified and as a matter of fact ran counter to each other’s. Still a very well crafted and good bit of viewing and excellent work as usual.
THUR
#17
I just got the news that the film won the ‘befair’ competition - the film will now be used for their good cause mission for global fair trading!
Mission accomplished and I’m having a coffee to celebrate!
eXpaintz
#19
congrats Joeri ! great short!
did You use messiah 3.0 on that one or did You move to 4.0?
THUR
#20
4.0 and used Vegards latest autorig - I rigged extra facials and customized it a little.
Vegard an me are currently working on the Knight’s rig for the 850 Meters shortfilm. Combining our styles and idea’s - where I bring my rigging methods from Plankton Invasion to the table, and Vegard taking those combined idea’s to another level.
It is looking very, very good I must say!
All this techniques will find their way to the future Messiah and Vegard’s autorig versions , probably after the short film is produced.
we’ll keep you posted!
J
Sil3
#21
Insane Deadlines thats for sure.
Can you tell us a bit more about the production?
Did those 5 days include everything done by you alone? I mean Modeling, Shading, Lighting and Render.
Anymore artwork you can also share? Storyboards, Rough Animations tests etc.
To be honest didn’t noticed any sloppiness and you should be very proud of this achievement :buttrock:
THUR
#22
I worked about 15 days on it - the last 5 were at 18hours/day (and I didn’t look very good anymore
Yep, within that time I did pretty much everything from storyboarding to uploading to Youtube. (Lots of tricks up my sleaf
But now matter how the images look, I always find music quite crucial - it is for sure half of the films strenght. (Thats what my teacher use to say at the academy)
My good friend Frederik never lets me down on that, just like he did for Plankton and hopefully for 850 as well.
As important is feedback; the initial animatic of the film was quite different, less ambitious and less strong. I dropped it after a few close people had doubt and wrote a new story.
Right now I’m a little busy on an episode for Oasis, but I will see for some extra (making off) stuff asap.
Grts
J
As for the sloppiness: at the end of the shot where the big guy drinks, the image freezes. 
Didnt see anything wrong and absolutly loved it.
Music was perfect!
15 days is pretty crazy congratulations!
dobermunk
#24
I find the spot refreshing in style - both visually and story-telling. It does what a good ad should: it plants the claim as the story’s resolution… here as a question. “Fair trade?”
That’s not only clever, its effective. The viewer is left with a question echoing throughout his/her daily encounter with cofee. Combine that with a catchy jingle.
To be overtly critical, the one thing that stumped me a bit (and that only mildly) was the role of the man in the white shirt and tie. After repeated viewings, I think this figure represents the consumer. If this is the case, I feel that the business-man dress doesn’t read as well as he could as contrast to the huge ocean freighter’s (quite successful) presence as big-business. Mental exercise: imagine the coffee drinker guy replaced with a woman in curlers and bathrobe. May be the man in the shirt and tie represents normal business?T hat’s about all I could muster in way of criticism… and there are things to be said in argue of the man… there’s a feeling of suspense as to his ambiguous intentions.
Congrats on a great film!