Lost Talkie
Joel speaking. I want to give a very quick introduction to a video I’ve published in honour of my updated personal webpage joelrabijns.be
![](https://www.mochimotion.be/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/idletalkie_04-fragmented.mov.00_00_19_02.Still002-300x169.jpg)
Fragments of Lost Talkie is the collected output of my learning basic 3D modelling and animation, roughly between 2014 and 2016. It is a sketch for what might have been (and might still become, at some point in the future) a narrative short film dealing with alien(ated) disembodied characters, McLuhanian nightmares, and Eisenteinian protoplasms*.
One of professor’s McLuhan’s most mind-tickling oneliners –or probes– is “When you are on the phone or on the air, you have no body.” The Lost Talkie took this statement quite literally.
![](https://www.mochimotion.be/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/idletalkie_04-fragmented.mov.00_00_09_16.Still004-300x169.jpg)
Traces of this body-of-work’s as of yet unrequited ambitions to form a coherent storyline are nevertheless present in the film’s current presentation, which may give it some merit beyond a mere technical artefact. Much of its imagery can be read and interpreted as one would a partially remembered dream or a warbled snippet of a distant radio broadcast.
![](https://www.mochimotion.be/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/process-02.jpg)
![](https://www.mochimotion.be/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/process-03-spine-thing-test-render.jpg)
![](https://www.mochimotion.be/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/process-01.jpg)
![](https://www.mochimotion.be/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Screen-Shot-2016-06-29-at-19.00.49-copy.jpg)
*I would love to dedicate several future blog posts to explorations of each of these themes in the context of modern-day animated film. For the time being, I’ve linked to relevant references in the text above. Any tips and thoughts from readers are very welcome.