Submarine Channel

Chunk: Animation by Jeff Metz

Every year TENT. – an art space in Rotterdam – presents the TENT. Academy Awards. This is a competition between the best graduation videos, films, shorts and animation from the Dutch art academies. This year the winner of the Public’s Choice Award was Edward Cook with his short documentary on a hotdog stand. Yael Assaf won the Jury’s Prize with his experimental film Everyone has to get over his biography. Both justifiable winners, but we would give credit to one of the other nominees: Jeff Metz with his untitled animation about a man who escapes his boring life. And since we liked his work so much, we thought of asking him some questions…

Jeff, how did you come up with this story?

I think it’s because I am easily bored myself. And, at the same time, I’m fascinated by people who commute everyday with the same train, at the same hour to the same boss. Or, maybe I just wanted to make a film about a pigeon with a plug in his butt…

A plug in his butt. Aha, so what’s the story about?

It’s about a man who struggles with the drag of daily life. His shrink comes up with this remedy, which is in fact just a placebo, but it makes the depressed man aware that he has to find the solution within himself. I choose minimal colors that verges on black and white. The characters are quite cartoonesque surrounded by just the essentials.

What software did you use?

The 3D work was completely done in Lightwave 3D. For the rest I used common stuff like Photoshop and AfterEffects for compositing the different layers and Premiere for the editing.

What are you working on now?

I am working as a freelancer for different companies at the moment and I hope to continue in this way for a long time. Getting to know a lot of different creative people, developing my skills and learn from the experiences. It would be nice if a company like The Mill or Psyop would hire me.