Oscars 2025 – Live-Action Shorts + the Emotion Mixer

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[00:02:54] Hi, Lorehounds listeners, it's Alicia, back with the next chapter of our Oscars 2025 prep series. This time, it's a shorter episode, zooming in on one of my all-time favorite categories, which has an especially good lineup this year, the live-action shorts. For this episode, I'll be joined in a moment by Catherine October-Matthews, whom some of you might recognize from our coverage of the witchy movies, The Craft, and The Craft Legacy from the Woolshift Dust feed back in October.

[00:03:21] I thought Catherine was an especially interesting guest for this episode, which is very focused on storytelling because she has developed a fun and interesting tool that we can use as a framework to evaluate these films. We'll describe it for you as we go, but if you're a more visual person and you just want to see what it looks like before you hear us talking about it, you'll find a link in the show notes to the emotion mixer and that will give you a better visual idea. As usual, you don't

[00:03:48] need to have seen the movies yourself. We'll set each of them up and help you decide which of these short films you might be interested in watching yourself or at least give you an overview of the nominees to give you more stake in the results of this category on Sunday the 2nd. But if you do want to watch before listening, and again, they are all shorts, which means they are under 40 minutes, you can watch the nominee Anuja on Netflix. You can find I Am Not a Robot on the New Yorker YouTube

[00:04:15] channel, and The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent is available on Arte.tv. So that's A-R-T-E dot TV, though that may be geolocked for Europe. The other two, The Last Ranger and Alien, have been taken offline since the nomination. If you're in the US, the shorts theater package is the best way to see them all and a great theater experience overall. But if you're having trouble and want to see these, hop into our awards season chat on the Lorehounds Discord and we'll see if we

[00:04:45] can help you find them. We are now in the second half of our Blitz of Oscars 2025 coverage. Check out the mini episode I did with David linked in the show notes for an overview of the entire series and some important notes for this year's ceremony and season, and then dive into the animation episode, which was a delightful conversation, not just about the Oscar nominees, but about the Oscars machine in general and some things you might not realize about animation. Plus, we have an episode about

[00:05:12] the Emilia Perez controversy from the Mexican and trans perspectives. And one of my favorite episodes this year is the Nevermind the Oscars music episode where Mark and I listen to the music clips to break down the score and song categories. Plus, there's a special spotlight episode about Conclave, the film that could sneak in to win the big prize, and a dive into the documentaries this year with doc editor Rebecca June Lane. If you haven't watched any of the docs, definitely listen to this to get a feel

[00:05:41] for those two categories and figure out if any of them are for you. Plus, get more recs of other 2024 docs you may like better. For this episode, the usual spoiler policy for this series applies where operating on the assumption that you have not seen these films. Bonus if you have, but in general, we're not trying to spoil any of them. But we are going to tell you generally what they're about, so you can have an idea of which might be interesting to you. And also, we're going to bring up some plot

[00:06:09] points as they're relevant to the discussion of the storytelling. So you're going to walk away with at least a feeling about what each of these are about and the emotions, especially in this case, they make you feel as you watch. Okay, that's all the preamble for today. Let's jump to my conversation with Catherine. Hi, and welcome, Catherine October Matthews. Now,

[00:06:34] listeners to this year's Spooktober special on the Woolshift Dust Feed where we talked about the craft, we'll have already, quote unquote, met you before. But do you want to give a quick introduction for people who haven't yet? Sure. I am Catherine October Matthews. I'm a writer, an artist, an editor, and an independent publisher based in the Netherlands along with you. Yes. And this may be how we know each other.

[00:07:01] So we're going to be talking through the five live action shorts that are nominated. And then I have a few more recs for anyone who's enjoyed these shorts so far. We're going to talk through them one at a time. But are there any favorites that you want to shout out up top? Oh, you know, I might be a bit cliche, but I did enjoy the Dutch movie. I'm not a robot.

[00:07:26] Maybe just because it wasn't so emotionally traumatizing as the others. Yeah. Okay. See, we'll get to it. But I think it's a dark horse for the prize, personally. Are you a fan of short film in general and the format? You know, I think it has its advantages. Currently, I would say I'm more of a series person gives you a little bit more to be invested in.

[00:07:58] But I do, it does have a special function, maybe similarly to short stories compared to novels or series in the written form. So I admire it as a form, while not having it as one of my favorites. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I'm always a fan. Those who listened last year will hear, have heard me say that I enjoy the short films, because they're like just little, like snack packs of different flavors.

[00:08:28] And as you point out, you know, it is an especially heavy year, I think, in terms of the content of the films at the Oscars. And that I think, you know, that's obviously reflecting this kind of darker moment we are in the world right now. And so it's nicer than in that case when it is under 40 minutes long. Yeah, I mean, if you're gonna punch me in the face repeatedly, I would appreciate if it was short.

[00:08:57] But speaking of these emotions, so you invented this tool that we're going to be using to as a framework for our conversation called the emotion mixer. And before we talk about how we're going to use it here, how is it normally used? Can you describe the tool for people who are not looking at it now? Sure. So it's basically a wheel that you can rotate and play with, similar in concept to a color wheel.

[00:09:24] And the idea is that it's a tool for creators, so that you can bring more emotional depth and nuance to your work. It's a tool of formalism. So for example, if you're a visual artist, and you were to think about a color wheel, you know, if you want to think about how to create an engaging color palette for your work, you might turn to a wheel and say, okay, I want to, you know, bring out red with some turquoise or something like this, you would you would make use of complex color compliments,

[00:09:54] split compliments, that sort of thing. There aren't really such tools of formalism for emotion. So this tool is a new introduction into that field, you know, how can we think about the emotions that we bring to, to, to the works that we create. And so the idea is that through the emotion mixer, you can consider emotions as a palette, you could create an emotional palette, or you can just think

[00:10:23] about the way that emotions can be disrupted by other forces. So that's the idea, like how, how can you think more formally about the emotions that you're trying to evoke in your audience? Right. So, since I am looking at the emotion mixer, so it looks like, so the way it works is you pick a

[00:10:48] primary emotion. In most cases you go for a primary emotion you're going for. In this case, I think when we're talking, we're going to be kind of reverse engineering this to use this as the framework for this conversation. So per short, let's say we pick a primary emotion that's most prevalent in the shorts. Sure. And then you see, uh, directly across from that, as you were describing the compliment.

[00:11:11] So we know like maybe with when a color wheel might be like blue with, uh, yellow, sorry, I'm not, uh, I don't have the color wheel off the top of my head. Is it red and green compliments? They're opposite. Yeah. But anyway, yeah. So, um, let's see, I have it on the emotion, serenity, contentment, calm, and then the compliment is, uh, overwhelm, stress, confusion. So it's kind of like the opposite in a

[00:11:38] way. Yeah. Um, it's something that is stark, stark contrast is a way that you can think about it, but contrast in a way that one brick can bring out or amplify the other. Um, and as well on the, on the emotion mixer, you can see also gradients. So there's also an intensity scale of all of these emotions. So there's kind of the strongest emotion. And then if you're trying to, let's say,

[00:12:03] bring out this full strength of one emotion, you might want to pick two subtler compliments just to kind of pepper, pepper in those things that bring out the strength of the other. Right. For example. Yeah. So in this case it would be serenity is the strongest on, on that side. And then, so you might want to mix it not with overwhelm, but with stress and confusion. Yeah. You kind of emphasize the serenity. Okay. Yeah. And so I see, uh,

[00:12:32] next to the compliment, there's the inner triad and outer triad. So there's one of each, I mean, there's, there's two for, uh, inner triads and then beyond that two outer triads. Yeah. Those are the split compliments. So for example, you could go directly across into the compliment and then you go one out on both sides for the inner triad and one out on both sides for the outer triad. And those are the split compliments. And, um, they're just, again,

[00:13:01] different combinations that you can use that, um, you would use both of those split compliments together. So it would become more of a, a threesome than the, than the two of the compliments. I see. So with serenity, you, um, could use terror and awe together or you could use fury and joy together. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. So the outer triad gets a bit more dis, not dispersed,

[00:13:29] but a bit wider in the emotional range. Yeah. Okay. And then next to the primary emotion, you also have addend. So next to serenity, there's triumph and depression. And these are just, instead of there being the three options with the gradients of, of strength of emotion, these are just the strongest ones. Yeah. So when it comes to the addends, um, so we,

[00:13:54] if we take as a given that you want to focus on serenity as your primary emotion, um, it may also be the case that you don't want to hit too directly on serenity, but you want to reach that emotion a bit indirectly. And so one way that you might achieve that is by using two emotions, which are in combination more, um, can, can reach something approaching serenity. So it's a little bit of an

[00:14:23] indirect. And so in this case, if you combine triumph and depression, it's something like an additive towards serenity. Interesting. Oh, yeah. I wouldn't have thought about depression, but I guess, um, with triumph being such like a strong active emotion, depression kind of takes it down a notch. Hmm. Yeah. And what I find maybe most interesting about using the emotion mixer is, um,

[00:14:51] when you start to talk about it, it really challenges you to think about how those emotions, how you get there, what those emotions feel like and, uh, and that conversation itself, that asking that questioning is where all the work happens. Cause most of the time you, I don't know, we throw around these words without really engaging or without, without working too hard to, to understand what they mean, because that's how language works, right? You throw out a word and

[00:15:20] people say they understand, but, but actually if like, we really get into it, it may be that we're making a whole lot of assumptions, both about emotion and language that aren't really, uh, shared, shared, shared assumptions. Right. Right. Okay. Oh, I think this is going to be fun. So as we go through, we're going to basically, uh, pick what we think is the dominant emotion and then look at the

[00:15:46] rest of this and see how this is playing into how the story was constructed. And as far as spoiler policy, like we're not here to spoil the films, but we do want to be able to, of course, discuss some plot points. So, um, just fair warning for that. Uh, so yeah, we're talking again about the live action shorts category and these awards have been around in some form since the beginning. Like they used to have one real and two real varieties, which were dividing them up by length. Um, then

[00:16:15] they had a special cat extra category for color, uh, special extra category for novelty, which I'm even not entirely sure what that's about. Uh, but now they've been in this current form basically since 1974. And the stipulation is that they be, these are fiction, you know, there's a second separate documentary category that there's already been an episode about. Um, and they, they have to

[00:16:42] be 40 minutes or less, including credits. Um, and then the Academy award goes to the, the individual most directly responsible for the concept and the creative execution of the film in the event that more than one individual has been directly and importantly involved in creative decisions. A second statuette may be awarded in effect. This basically means it's always the creator, or if there are two creators, then the two creators, if there's one creator, the second person is pretty

[00:17:12] much always the producer, the main producer on the film. Um, there was a short list of 15 films. I'm going to shout out a couple from that short list that didn't make the nomination at the end, but of course, as usual, five nominees in total. And, um, let's start with the last Ranger. So that's a 28 minute film from South Africa, uh, made by Darwin Shaw and Cindy Lee and distributed

[00:17:41] by the star film company. And it's set at the Amakala game reserve. And also they did some filming at the Kariega game reserve. These are both on, in the Eastern Cape in South Africa and it's set during the pandemic and yeah, it incorporates real rhino footage, by the way, the most horrifying parts. And this is a content warning for animal lovers. This is a real heartbreaker of one. Um, it is about

[00:18:10] basically it's about rhino poaching and it involves a personal story from, um, a, some, some game park, uh, what do you call them? Uh, nine guides, Rangers, right, right. It's right there in the title. Um, and, and there's like a family with a little girl and her father and grandmother. Um, so it becomes

[00:18:35] a personal story about that and we won't spoil that personal story, but what would you say, Catherine is the primary emotion in this one? Despair. Despair. Uh, despair. So with lighter shades of lonely, loneliness and alienation, or if you do the addend depression and disgust, Ooh, yeah. I feel the depression and the disgust really.

[00:19:02] Yeah. Um, that's definitely a thing, but on the other side, there is joy and actually playfulness. I think that for me is the key. Like that's the emotion that they, that they use very well. And I feel like this one really does hold up with the reverse engineering of the emotion mixer because there's all this despair going on and I would, I would qualify here. So despair as an emotion,

[00:19:28] like just to give a kind of a working definition where we're talking, not just about, um, depression, which is more about one sadness, but despair is specifically kind of about the, the alienation amplified. So, um, a sense of, uh, really an extreme disconnection from other people and yourself.

[00:19:52] If I pair that with one of the more subtle versions of the compliment playfulness, there's all these scenes of, you know, them driving in the car and, you know, there's the, there, she's got the little toy rhinos that she's playing with the little girl and, you know, she's waving them in the wind and they're, they're kind of poking fun at each other. And, uh, she's speaking to her in the voice as though

[00:20:19] she and the ranger. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As though that she is the rhino and, you know, they're doing this playfulness. And I think that the balance of those two is kind of what creates the human connection. Right. And it's interesting that, you know, so as you say, um, the primary emotion comes in different shades and the lighter shades you have for despair here are loneliness and alienation. And this is, as I said, set during COVID. So that's definitely, and this is, um, one of the

[00:20:49] background things is that it's hard for them to really watch for the poachers because obviously a lot of people who work at the park as rangers are went home and they can't really pay them because there aren't tourists coming in. And, you know, so it is this, this moment of loneliness and alienation and it is perhaps also driving some characters to, uh, turn to poaching out of

[00:21:14] desperation. Yeah. And I think moreover that there's this feeling of, um, you know, the, the, the rangers are kind of out there on their own and there is this feeling that I think they create, which is a little bit, it's us against the world. Um, there are these forces at play, um,

[00:21:37] that we are, you know, um, trying, trying to work against and we feel righteous about, but there are very large forces that we are, you know, mere, mere mortals to deal with. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I should say about the compliment joy, um, it doesn't end on a note of joy.

[00:22:00] Uh, very end. Bittersweetness at least. Uh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it, it at least tries to leave us with some sense of hope or continuity or, um, it tries. I, I, I must admit, I, I, I'm, I'm left more with the overwhelming sense of despair. I find, I, cause I found it was so strong and so long

[00:22:29] that it was, I mean, like I said, I do think that they integrated that, that spicing of playfulness that kept it from being, um, too exclusively that one hard note throughout, but it was a pretty hard note for a long time. Like they really drove it home. Yeah. I watched it twice and especially the first time I just, I cried throughout. Yeah. All right. Why, why you do that to yourself?

[00:23:00] All right. Moving on to the next super happy one. So Anuja is the next nominee, 22 minutes long from the USA, but in Hindi and set in India. And, um, um, if it wins the Oscars, we'll go to Suchitra Matai and Adam J. Graves. Uh, this one you can see on Netflix and it's, uh, it was put together, I guess, by the Salaam Balak trust and Indian nonprofit group

[00:23:30] and non-governmental organization, which provides support for street and working children in the, uh, Delhi area. And I mean, they, they were, uh, at least involved in the background. Um, and, and this one's really about, it's about two young sisters who are on their own and working in like a sweatshop, basically sewing clothing. Um, and, but the younger girl is very smart and she

[00:23:58] has an opportunity for an education and I won't spoil, spoil it, but I'll just say like, it ends up coming down to a choice, um, between prioritizing her education, which her sister wants to do, but also this could come at a great cost to her sister versus, you know, prioritizing her sister. So yeah. What would you say is the primary emotion for you in this one?

[00:24:23] Um, this is an interesting one because I, I, I feel like they are intentionally trying to create, um, indecision, which isn't, um, which is an uncertainty. So in the emotion and the emotion mixer, I don't describe this as an emotion, but a distortion and that, and that's on the other side.

[00:24:47] Um, so there are these, uh, disruptions to emotion. So I, I would, so I would put this in the category of desire or joy maybe. And it's, it's a distorted effect. So I, I may call it hope. I think it's a real driving force of this one, um, or possibly anticipation, but there's a whole lot of uncertainty,

[00:25:15] like uncertainty is kind of, especially from the, from the perspective of the, the Anuja, the, the younger sister who, um, who is the one who has to fundamentally make this choice. She doesn't seem to really know what she wants. She just knows how much she loves her sister. Right. She, but she doesn't seem to have a strong driving knowledge of what she wants or should want.

[00:25:45] Um, she just likes hanging out with her sister. Um, so that's why I think the emotion is so much more, not about what she's feeling, but about what we as the audience hope for her. And it is that hope, like we want what's best for her. We, we hope that she finds her way through this and that's to do with the uncertainty. And I think that uncertainty comes from her that we don't know what she's going to

[00:26:12] choose. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, about the emotion mixer, I missed this backside and this is very interesting actually what's going on here. So you have, um, the, you know, what we've been talking about the primary side, but then on the other side, you have these strong emotions, but then, um, a different kind of wheel under them. So you take an emotion and you can add acceptance or add

[00:26:38] denial or add frustration or add uncertainty. And those are the distortions that you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. Um, because they're not exactly emotions and, you know, even within the field of emotions, there's a lot of, um, uh, disagreement or like it's not always so clear what an emotion is because there's so many things that are more like experiences than emotions. Like, um,

[00:27:04] for example, do we, do we all agree with certainty that love is an emotion and lust is physiological? You know, so many of these things are, are kind of families of reactions that more than they are. Uh, so, so we, when we talk about emotions, there has to be a little bit of, a little bit of understanding or appreciation for the idea that they're not one thing. Um, but, but when I was thinking about this, this side of the emotion and disruption, it's, you know, the, these forces,

[00:27:33] acceptance, denial, frustration, and uncertainty, they're more like factors that influence emotion or distort emotions more than they are emotions themselves. And so that's what I'm looking at. Like how these things, like how uncertainty distorts your emotion or disrupts your emotion. Right. Yeah. And, and that's a really interesting point to bring up for especially a new job because

[00:28:00] it is, they live an uncertain existence where they're just trying to eck out and, you know, no spoilers, but just maybe bend the, bend the rules a little bit to, um, make something out of a, yeah. What's, uh, they don't really have solid footing under their feet at any point. That's kind of the driving force of this narrative. Yeah, very much so. And, um, you know, they're, they're trying to make their way the best way

[00:28:27] that these two very young girls know how. Yeah, the younger one's eight, I think. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but yeah, uncertainty drives a lot about, uh, about, about their lives. Yeah. Okay.

[00:29:12] Okay. Speaking of uncertainty, uh, the next one is one that I hated the experience of watching, but I can't stop thinking about ever since. And that's a lien. And I'm saying it like that because it's spelled a space L I E N. And yeah, when Bowen Yang announced this at the Oscar announcements, he was like alien. I was like, no, no, that's under special effects as a different film.

[00:29:42] I don't know how you're supposed to pronounce it, but I'm going to say a lien. Um, it's 15 minutes long. It's, uh, an American short. Um, it's the Oscar would go to Sam and David Cutler Cruz, which I'm not sure I'm assuming they're brothers, but I don't know. And this one, it's actually fairly less decorated than the others because, you know, we talked about during the animation episode that for

[00:30:08] shorts, you often, you have to go through a string of festivals and do well there to get this far. Uh, but I do wonder if this could also be a low key dark horse, like the one we're going to talk about last. Um, it is based on a real practice of ice luring people to, you know, so it's about a migrant

[00:30:31] who he was brought to the U S when he was a small child. He was raised here. He has a fully American accent. He has, uh, an American wife and they just talk like they, they don't even like speak Spanish really much. Um, not that that's a problem if they do, but just to say how firmly American he is. Uh, and they have a daughter, a young daughter who's maybe, I don't know, like six, six. Okay.

[00:31:01] And, uh, they're going to his meeting for, he's going to have like a hearing for a green card, but then while they're there at the meeting, people start being arrested and it is so tense. I'm glad it's only 15 minutes because it was like really, Oh, my heart was studying out of my chest. Um, what, what was your primary emotion for this one? I want to say emotion, but I think it, uh,

[00:31:27] danced frenetically between overwhelm and terror. And the thing that I would emphasize is that I think this is one for the, for the backside for the disruption, because if you take, uh, overwhelm and uncertainty, uh, or anxiety. Oh yeah. This anxiety is definitely a driving force in this. Or if you take terror and uncertainty. Panic. Yeah. Panic. Right. Yeah. This, this was all about

[00:31:55] that, that whole family, overwhelm, terror, panic, anxiety. It was, it was all over. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause yeah. Cause it's not really about the compliments of, I mean, maybe, yeah, there is, there is a moment of triumph in a sense, and there is obviously depression, uh, looming. So that's the inner triad across from overwhelm on the front side. So.

[00:32:23] Yeah. They give us a small sprinkling of relief. Triumph. Yeah. Yeah. The, the, the, the subtlest version of that relief. I don't know. Um, they give us a small sprinkling of that. Um, and a bit of, I mean, as, as well as sadness. So I think, I think they do sprinkle that in, but it is, um, but they use that to kind of, uh, amplify that those, those hard hitting

[00:32:53] primary notes of overwhelm, terror, panic. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's not an easy watch as you might gather, but I do recommend it's only 15 minutes. As I said, this is one of the shorter ones. Um, and I think every American especially should see this. Mm. Yeah. It's, um, even before the last few weeks, it's, it's, uh, very relevant to the current moment.

[00:33:23] Yeah. I mean, I do worry that it is more because it's so emotionally driven. I do think that it will mostly affect the people who are already emotionally invested in the, you know, the, the good treatment of others. Yeah. But if you see parents, uh, you know, like a mother with her small child, for example,

[00:33:46] I think that's hard for even people who, you know, the people who don't, aren't emotionally invested in, in, uh, you know, the, the, the fair treatment of, of migrants, then just seeing that you can't help, but relates, it's hard not to relate to the, these people. And I think that's part of what makes it so

[00:34:08] gripping. Mm. Yeah. Hmm. Okay. Well, um, the next one on the list isn't really easier. Uh, we're saving, we're saving the fuzzy one for last. Fuzzy is a relative term here. Um, but okay. So this, the next one, uh, number four is the man who could not remain silent. And that is 13 minutes long. It's from Croatia and oh my gosh, I'm going to try

[00:34:38] these names, but I am so sorry in advance. Nabo, uh, Naboysha. Naboysha. Naboysha. Thank you. Oh yeah. You're, you're better at this. Can you say these names? You used to live, uh, in, in, uh, the Czech Republic at least. Yeah. Naboysha Slayipcevic and Daniel Peck. Okay. That's my best shot. Please forgive. No, that's much better than, thank you. Thank you. I think it's a very, I love the way it looks,

[00:35:03] but, um, I just am not as practiced in pronouncing those letters. Uh, and so this is about the striptease massacre of 1993, which involved the killing of 18 Muslims in one Croat, uh, Croat who were pulled off the train by the Serbian white Eagles paramilitary group. And, um, the one

[00:35:28] Croat was a retired Yugoslavian officer, Tomo Busov. So sorry, we are history spoils this one. Um, yeah, but it's, yeah, it does. It's a tense moment that primarily takes place in a train car where at first one guy's being like that, Oh, I am going to, you know, I'm going to make sure everyone's okay. And he's not the one who stands up at the end. And it's just this kind of chilling,

[00:35:56] they leave it on this very chilling note. Um, this one is the favorite to win. I think primarily because it was the winner of the short film top palm door at con in 2024. So it is thought to be the potential winner. I don't know about that. We'll talk about that in the, when we talk about the next one, but this is, uh, in any case, the first Croatian film to get nominated for in this category since the independence of Croatia. And what would you,

[00:36:26] say, is the primary emotion here? This one's a bit tough for me because I think it, um, it hits on something that's not covered directly by the emotion mixer, which would be injustice, but kind of some similar emotions that it might be hitting on are, um, outrage, self-righteousness,

[00:36:51] defensiveness, um, all of which are part of the disruption side in this, which is, um, those are all states of denial combined with disgust, anguish and fury. Mm. Yeah. Yeah. So that, that is kind of the, the, the, the family of emotions that I would, that I would put this in.

[00:37:15] Yeah. Yeah. I think that that's definitely when it leaves viewers with is, is disgust at humanity at, uh, these dark moments and, and, um, there's, there's a helplessness. Yeah. Maybe that's a good, uh, a good emotion. I wouldn't have, um, I wouldn't have really come to mind with that, but I think you're right.

[00:37:41] Yeah. I mean, this one I recommend looking up it is, it's very well made. And like I said, it is the favorite to win, but, um, most people who I talk to have the last one as their favorite, including you, including me and just to prove it's not just because it's Dutch, including Lisa red zippy, uh, from the discord. She sent in a voicemail that we'll listen to in just a second.

[00:38:08] So I think that I'm not a robot, a 22 minute Dutch Belgian shorts. Um, and by that we mean Dutch and, and bell, uh, the Netherlands and Belgium, like co-produced to basically helped fund it together, but it is, uh, it's from Victoria Varmerdam, um, and Trent and Victoria Varmerdam is Dutch. Um, and this one's distributed by the New Yorker. So it is one of the easier ones to find.

[00:38:36] And it's about the capture test, which the movie will tell you several times kind of hilariously is the completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart. And so basically, uh, this, the main character is, uh, at work and she gets a capture test pops up and, you know, she's trying to pass it. Like, uh, what are the stoplights? Or I don't remember what exactly

[00:39:00] it is for this one. And then she keeps failing the capture test. And so she calls, she calls customer support and customer support is like, well, have you ever considered that maybe you are a robot? And then things spiral in a surreal way from there. Um, and before I check in with you, Catherine, let's listen to what Red Zippy had to say about this.

[00:39:26] Hey, this is Lisa AKA Red Zippy. And I'm calling in to talk about my favorite live action short film so far, which is I'm Not a Robot. Uh, granted, I have not yet seen the last ranger, nor the man who could not remain silent yet. So I think my rankings will change, but for now, let's talk about, I'm not a robot. This for me was a great episode of Black Mirror.

[00:39:54] Um, you know, it, it started out as a darkly humorous IT scenario. I mean, we've all been there. I hate the capture boxes when they pop up. I mean, how dare they get free AI training from me as I try to log onto a website. Uh, but anyway, uh, but then she clicks on the take a quiz. And again, I'm still like, this is a dark comedy. The fake exam will be silly, et cetera. Uh, when she gets her

[00:40:24] exam score, the film just turns into a psychological thriller about AI, uh, lead actress Ellen Perrin, I thought was terrific. And I was at the edge of my seat in the final minutes. Uh, I understand the man who could not remain silent is the favorite to win this. And I can't wait to see it when the Oscar shorts hit our movie theaters. That's all for now. Um, yeah. And just by the way,

[00:40:49] on the note about a short being the favorite to win, it's a notoriously unpredictable category. So I think, yeah, it could very well be, I'm not a robot. I'm not a robot. I'm not a robot. Catherine, what do you think is the primary emotion of I'm not a robot. I would say a little bit between fury and anguish and some of the distortions there,

[00:41:15] because there's a whole lot of, yeah. Denial. Definitely. Yeah. And the, and the, the frustration, the frustration of, um, of, I mean, anyone who's ever been trying to fill out one of those stupid capture things in it and you know, you miss one street sign or something, and then you're stuck there on somebody. It's frustrating because you're trying to complete something or you're trying to

[00:41:41] do something and you're being prevented from doing so by administrivia. Yeah. So there's, there's anger combined with a bit of pain as it develops. So anger, sorry, fury and anguish. Um, but, but then also together with the frustration and maybe uncertainty. So with those distorting factors, so.

[00:42:06] Yeah, it's very interesting because, uh, so if you combine, and this is something, you know, we don't want to like give away the whole thing, but it is something that keeps, it just keeps building as it keeps going. You're like, holy shit, well what now? Um, in a darkly humorous way. Uh, so you add denial and that leads to defensiveness with anguish, add denial to fury. It leads to outrage. Definitely emotions. She experiences add frustration.

[00:42:34] And we get resentment from anguish, bitterness from fury. Definitely by the, she's definitely getting bitter, uh, by certain people towards certain people by the end. Um, you add uncertainty, there's suspicion and it's interesting, add certainty to anguish and you get mortalism, which yeah, no spoilers, but that definitely. Yeah. Well, I think that one is really, I mean, a really perfect manifestation in this,

[00:43:01] in this exercise, like this, this idea, am I alive or am I not like this, this defense of your mortalism? Um, I, this, this is a, it's such an existential, uh, threat, right? Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I really hope that this one wins because I feel like,

[00:43:25] you know, obviously the, the man who could not remain silent that has the con recognition and, um, it's yeah, but I just keep hearing people being passionate about I'm not a robot and the shorts are so unpredictable about who, and I'm not a robot is one of the easier ones to watch. So there's a good chance that voters were able to watch it even before, um, official voting before they got the screeners and stuff. So, yeah.

[00:43:55] At the same time, I do feel a bit bad for picking that as my personal favorite, just because I know that I'm, I know that I'm leaning towards it just because it's maybe the most emotionally easy because it's got that dark humor about it or like, or that absurdity about it. And some of these are just so intense, so unpleasantly intense to watch. Very real. The rest are all very real and this is sci-fi here.

[00:44:23] Yeah. And so I don't know. I mean, there, there's always the difference or I don't want to fall into the trap of, um, uh, entertaining ourselves to death or something like, like that. And at the same time, I don't, you know, This does have depth though, still. Sure. Sure. And it's not entirely pleasant to watch either. No, no. It's just absurd in a way that the others can just be gut-wrenching or, or, uh, like really, really,

[00:44:53] uh, panic stricken or, or so on, but, but they were all so intense, like really just full of intensity for, for such small packages. Yeah. I mean, I think this is a really strong year in terms of the quality of these, but indeed it's, it's an intense year. Um, so other than, uh, I'm not a robot, which of the other ones would you recommend people seek out most? Oh, Alianne.

[00:45:24] Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Only 15 minutes again. And it's, it'll stick with you. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I guess, yeah, this, I would say the same. I mean, obviously I'm like, watch them all. Plus, plus, uh, there's another shortlisted one, uh, that didn't get nominated, but it's actually, it's one of my top favorites and it's called the masterpiece. It's 20 minutes long. It's American,

[00:45:53] um, by Alex Laura Cersos. And it did win actually the short film grand jury prize at the Sundance film festival in 2024. So I am surprised it didn't get the nomination. It's just also very good. It's, um, it's kind of like succession, like a short version of succession in a way where, uh, you have this family who comes to collect, you know, there's a wealthy family and there's a less wealthy

[00:46:22] family. And the less wealthy family is going to take some, uh, appliances from the wealthier families, um, house so that they can, you know, turn them in for parts and blah, blah, blah, get some money off of them. Uh, and then the wealthier family sees the less wealthy family has a painting and it's the wife who works in art believes it could be worth a lot of money. And it becomes a negotiation. Then once they realize that this random painting they've collected from someone else might be

[00:46:52] something of value and how they negotiate from these different places of power. And it's just super interesting. I definitely recommend the masterpiece. Uh, and there was also a, another light, darkly humorous one, but not entirely light one called crust that should be easy to find on YouTube. That was another one from the shortlist for the Oscars. And it's about kind of a, uh, an

[00:47:17] allegory in a way, um, of how we pass on family trauma and the expectation to carry the trauma of previous generations. Uh, but in the sense of a kind of daredevil family, it's just very cute. Um, um, sister wives is, uh, BAFTA was that BAFTA nominee was it BAFTA long list, but anyway, it's, you can probably, I think you can still find that on YouTube and it is about two Mormon

[00:47:46] women who are, you know, forced into a polygamous marriage together and, um, how they find happiness. And that one does have a really nice ending. So definitely. And you'll recognize by the way, they, I think the actresses who play the two women actually, and the husband as well. And the other one is one that I saw at a festival and it is, um, set in the, I think Chinese Australian community, I guess in Melbourne. And it's called the dancing girl and the balloon man. And it's just

[00:48:16] a really charming meet cute between two people. One of which is a, uh, balloon man who is someone who, I guess this is like a thing in Australia where you, uh, they use like these human size balloons and you can crawl inside and perform and do these things in any way. So I think all of those are worth, uh, checking out. Catherine, did you have any thoughts on, on the shorts that we've talked about

[00:48:42] today? I think one more thing that really stood out to me is how much these collectively were concerned with oppressive power, like institutional power being used to oppress people. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's really of the time. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And I mean, I think it's, we see in the Oscars reflected back the year that

[00:49:10] we've been experiencing and it's not really, there is, although there's a lot of more escapism in terms of like, we see more sci-fi nominations, like I'm not a robot or, you know, in the big categories we see more horror, which is kind of our way of dealing with being in a dark times. Yeah. I, I just always, this is one of my favorite categories. So thank you for coming to talk with me

[00:49:34] about it today. Uh, I will include in the show notes, a link to your website and a link to the emotion mixer. So people can see what it looks like for themselves. And you have like, uh, some diagrams on there a bit about how it works. So people can explore that if they were intrigued by that. Yeah. Thank you again for your time. And, uh, we're going to get you back soon, I think, to talk maybe something travel related. Great. Thanks so much. It's been a pleasure.

[00:50:02] Bye. Bye. Thank you again, Catherine. Um, and after we recorded, Catherine sent me an interview that she found where the directors of the immigration thriller Alien were asked about the name. And they said this, uh, David Cutler Cruz said, I don't know, uh, when asked about, you know, where the name came from, he said, I don't know. I think when you think about titles, sometimes they just seem to

[00:50:26] appear out of somewhere. And then I can't recall maybe Sam speaking to his brother, you recall exactly where a line came from is how they're spelling it here. But I think it was just one of those ones where that we stumbled on it. And it really was truly a stumble on the title. Like what a fascinating phrase or essentially wordplay that encompasses the whole story, right? I mean, in some weird way, it just tells the entire story of the movie in just that. And I think it was just one of those

[00:50:55] ones that just kept sticking with us. It feels like it encompasses, like, it doesn't mean anything on the surface, but then after you've watched the film, you go back and you're like, Oh, that is the film, right? I mean, it's bureaucratic. It's about obligation and payment and dues. And yet at the same time, it's a play of words on alien and split apart. I mean, it's the film. So I think it was

[00:51:21] just for us. That's really where that came from. And Sam Cutler-Krut says, Yeah, I think if you look back at our other shorts as well, we like titles that have multiple meanings that can hold more than one thing. And something about that. I don't know it. We try as best we can and to varying degrees of success to infuse the films all the way through with the deepest kind of meaning we can. That sounds very lame, but try to build in stuff and not like hiding Easter eggs or numerology, but just this idea.

[00:51:49] Although we sometimes do that too. But how do we layer in these in the deepest themes all the way through this thing? And then that translates out to the title, I think as well, where how is that a reflection of our kind of multi-layered thoughts? And it's a complicated topic. So credit to the blog

[00:52:10] Ice Cream for Freaks for that interview and A-L-E-N spelled L-I-E-N like the like the title of the movie. In that case, it's an official order that allows someone to keep property of a person who owes them money until that money has been paid back. Anyway, so thank you, Catherine, for sending that over. Very illuminating. And check the show notes for links to Catherine's website and images and visual

[00:52:39] explanations of the emotion mixer tool that you just heard us using. And for good measure, I'll add the link to the conversation Catherine and I had about the craft movies over on the Wolfship dust feed. So side note, by the way, on this category for the BAFTAs, the BAFTA nominees for Best British Short Film, which is the closest parallel category, they had zero overlap this year with the

[00:53:03] Oscar nominees. But this year's prize of the BAFTAs went to Rock Paper Scissors for Best British Short Film. Yeah, Rock Paper Scissors is a true and very harrowing story of a young man trying to protect a bunker full of kids in the Ukrainian war. And the film may or may not still be available to watch on the BAFTA YouTube channel in Britain, depending on when you hear this. Next up for our series, it's time to talk about the writing.

[00:53:30] The two writing categories at the Oscars are Best Adapted and Best Original Screenplays, which as usual are closely tied to the Best Picture nominees. And I've paired these with another category I consider to be one of the most important and exciting to watch, International Film, which this year also includes two Best Picture nominees, though I'm actually rooting for another film on that lineup. Coming this week after that are the

[00:53:56] Blockbuster Awards or Tech Awards is the way they're usually called. Sounds kind of boring that way, but they're actually the films you're most likely to have seen. And then we will wrap up this series with episodes about the acting and directing categories and the grand finale with David, looking back on everything we've discussed throughout this series to discuss the biggest award, the 10 Best Picture nominees. In the meantime, check the show notes for links to the Oscar nominated movies we've already

[00:54:22] done deep dives into, plus our previous Oscars coverage this year and last. And also watch this feed for new Silmarillion stories, Maya Jean's reaction to Captain America coming at the start of next week, and a Lorehounds play about the new Indiana Jones games coming soon. If you're a Severance fan, of course, make sure you're subscribed to this separate Severance Lorehounds feed and Supercast and Patreon

[00:54:47] subscribers have been getting the extra Severance topic deep dives into a lot about especially the psychology of Severance and the neurophysiology of the technology that you use. So that is also if you're not a subscriber, that is also available through a discounted season pass. Although subscribers also have access to extra episodes like a second breakfast episode coming, a Daredevil prep episode coming, where Jean and I are going to recap what happened basically in the Netflix series and talk

[00:55:16] through that. And this month's 11 Z's is David Lynch's Eraserhead. Explore the link tree in the show notes for all of those links and also the affiliate feeds like my own Wool Shift Dust, which just wrapped up Siloam, we're about to begin Dune, the Star Wars Canon Timeline podcast, Radioactive Ramblings, they're doing Invincible right now as well as Ghibli, and never mind the music, psychology and music. And you'll find a link in the link tree also to our discord where there's a

[00:55:45] special award season channel where you can join the chat. You'll find it under current shows under the current shows heading, as well as channels for basically everything else we're talking about and beyond. We also want to hear your thoughts on this year's Oscars crop and what your other top movies are of this year, especially if you can record a voice message about what exactly you loved and why. And you can email that to Oscars at the lorehounds.com so that we can include you in the conversation in

[00:56:13] the finale. And if you enjoyed this episode, please do share it with someone else you think might like some of these Oscar or storytelling insights. And as usual, we're going to wrap it up with a shout out to the people who support us most and help us make this crazy podcasting venture increasingly viable. So thank you, thank you, thank you so much to discord server boosters, Aaron K, Tilla the Thriller, Dork of the Ninjas, Doove71, Athena,

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[00:57:05] Matthew M, Sarah M, DJ Miwa, Andra B, Kwong Yu, Jedi Jedi Bob, Nathan T, Alex V, Aaron T, Sub-Zero, Aaron K, Dally V, Mothership61, Gnarls, Kathy W, Lestu, Jeffrey B, Elisa Yu, Neil F, Ben B, Scott F, Steven N, Julia F, Kali S, Imariel, and always last, Adrian. And thank you, of course, to all of our listeners. You make it possible for us to keep doing this.

[00:57:34] Please do share this with any other film fans in your life who you think might enjoy it. And see you next for what I personally consider to be some of the most important categories of the race, adapted and original screenplay and international film. The Lorehounds podcast is produced and published by The Lorehounds. You can send questions and feedback and voicemails at thelorehounds.com slash contact.

[00:58:00] Get early and ad-free access to all Lorehounds podcasts at patreon.com slash the Lorehounds. Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities. Thanks for listening. Hey, everyone. David here. Severance is back. The Lorehounds are partnering with Properly Howard to bring you in-depth weekly coverage of season two.

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