★★★★★
Directed by: Courtney Westbrook
Starring: Greg Poppleton
Short Film Review by: #StefaniaMihailescu
CNUT is a 3-minute stop motion animation exploring the conflict between nature and man’s technology. CNUT is inspired by the story of King Canute (or Cnut) who demonstrates to his subjects that even the most powerful human cannot control the impending tide or nature.
Cnut the Great, also known as Canute, was king of Denmark, England and Norway; together often referred to as the North Sea Empire. Yet after the deaths of his heirs within a decade of his own, and the Norman conquest of England in 1066, this legacy was lost.
There’s a stong need to recognize that in our success in controlling nature, we’ve become alienated from it—which has potentially disastrous consequences as the climate changes.
Nature is our life-support system and nowadays we are losing nature faster than it can restore itself.
The impending tide of social pressure keeps us busy and anchored in finding perfection and validation, while ‘’the waves’’ take us offshore little by little until we loose control.
In order to be present in social media, taking selfies has become a very popular activity. This is more than just the taking of a photograph and can include the editing of the colour and contrast, changing backgrounds, and adding other effects, before uploading the picture onto a social media platform. These added options and the use of integrative editing has further popularized selfie-taking behaviour. From a psychological perspective, the taking of selfies is a self-oriented action which allows users to establish their individuality and self-importance.
The director approached the curious and charming Greg Poppleton for voice and movement acting. You’ll be enchanted by Greg’s charisma seeing him interacting with the set dressing on the film’s time-lapses as the worlds were constructed around him. Greg brings life and warmth to any character he has a hand in creating.
Along the film we follow our well-dressed protagonist as he tirelessly battles with his environment and task of taking a good selfie. Will he succeed?
