Owzat

Last updated
Owzat
Directed byMark Brierley
David Sproxton
Written byMark Brierley
Produced by Peter Lord
David Sproxton
Dave Throssell
CinematographyMark Brierley
Edited byRichard Atherton
Production
companies
Release date
1997
Running time
4 minutes, 50 seconds
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Owzat is a 1997 CGI [1] short film created by Aardman Animations. [2] [3] The title is a shortened form of "How's that?", the traditional call used to request rulings from an umpire during a game of cricket.

Contents

Plot

Teams of ghosts and skeletons gather in a church graveyard for a midnight game of cricket under a full moon. One skeleton batsman repeatedly hits the ball into the gravestones and monuments, damaging them and irritating the ghosts' bowler. After one hit flies into the belfry, striking the bell and sending it crashing to the ground, the ghosts confront the batsman with photographs of the damage he has caused. He ignores these and dares the ghosts to continue the game. When the next ball is bowled, the batsman knocks it into the weather vane mounted atop the belfry; it ricochets into the sky and shatters the moon as if it were a light bulb, leaving the graveyard in total darkness.

Production

The film's delivery format was Betacam SP. [4] The CGI animating and modelling was done using Softimage 3D. [5]

The film was shown at the 1998 International Film Festival Rotterdam under the theme "exploding cinema", [6] and the 1998 Holland International Film Festival under the theme "Nieuwe media". [7]

Critical reception

On IMDb, Owzat received a rating of 5.3/10 from 105 users. [8]

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References

  1. "Aardman Animations - Owzat". Telepathy.co.uk. Retrieved 2015-06-10.
  2. "Synopsis for the Theatrical Short Owzat". Bcdb.com. Archived from the original on January 11, 2014. Retrieved 2015-06-10.
  3. "Owzat (1997)". FilmAffinity.com. Retrieved 2015-06-10.
  4. "Owzat - IFFR.COM - International Film Festival Rotterdam 2015 - IFFR". Filmfestivalrotterdam.com. Retrieved 2015-06-10.
  5. "CV". Archived from the original on August 20, 2013. Retrieved January 11, 2014.
  6. "Owzat - IFFR.COM - International Film Festival Rotterdam 2015 - IFFR". Filmfestivalrotterdam.com. Retrieved 2015-06-10.
  7. "Owzat - Holland Animation Film Festival - HAFF". Haff.nl. Archived from the original on 2015-04-02. Retrieved 2015-06-10.
  8. "Owzat (1997)". IMDb.com. Retrieved 2015-06-10.