Tom Gasek | 9 mins | USA

Off-Line is a short stop-motion animated film that I created and produced over four years. It tells about my relationship to work and how I understand it. The film is focused on a small orange capacitor named “IZ” that lives on the circuit-board control-panel of a microwave oven. The microwave is constantly being abused by a human through overuse and inappropriate application and in the end the microwave shorts out. This is based on my own personal experience. When the microwave is shorted-out the human bangs the machine and on the inside IZ is jolted out of its connection holes. IZ is forced to travel around its world, the circuit board, seeking life force and discovering the world around it. In a classic “hero’s journey” fashion, IZ eventually comes to the edge of the world and has a vision about work and its place in that system. IZ discovers its unique role in the grand scheme and decides to return to its position once the human gives the work-command. Now, enlightened, IZ chooses to step out of its connection holes by “free will” and encourages others to do the same. They concur, but in the end greater forces in life overcome the gift of the hero’s journey.

SCREENING SCHEDULE
2:00 PM     Sun, Oct 17, 2010
New York Hall of Science

PRODUCTION CREDITS
Creator, director, animator, fabricator, DP, Edit | Tom Gasek
Music | Allan Schindler
Sound design | Jeff  Jacoby
Conform edit | Jeff Sias

DIRECTOR’S BIO
An award winning stop-motion director and character animator with over 27 years of professional experience. His credits include animation on Aardman Animation’s The Wrong Trousers and Chicken Run to Henry Selick’s Coraline. He is currently teaching at The Rochester Institute of Technology. He lives in Western Massachusetts.

TRAILER

“Off-Line” clip from Tom Gasek on Vimeo.