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Watch: Post-Apocalyptic Animated Short 'Ruin' Created by Wes Ball

by Alex Billington
March 16, 2012
Source: SlashFilm

Gotta love a little sci-fi like this to end the week. Our friends at SlashFilm found a short film, viewable in full on Vimeo, called Ruin, directed by Wes Ball, a graphics designer who has been working on this for the last two years. Reminiscent of some of those other great sci-fi shorts of past we've featured, this has an I Am Legend meets Terminator (with all the motorcycle-chasin') feel, but in the style of a CG cut scene, though there is some incredible animation in it. Ball does some great work here and it's a fun short, just an excellent action-chase set "way in the future in a green post-apocalyptic universe." I highly recommend watching.

Described on the Vimeo page simply as: "Ruin - An animated short set in a post-apocalyptic universe." Thanks again to SlashFilm for finding this. They explain that Ball has been "working in Hollywood for 8 years doing graphic work for HBO and DVD/Blu-ray featurettes", is a graduate of Florida State University, Tallahasse, and has directed an award winning short called A Work in Progress (seen here). Described as his "passion project", Ball has been working off and on Ruin for the last two years at Oddball Animation. You can also find a full behind-the-scenes and look at the concept on their website: oddballanimation.com.

Filed under Feat, SciFi, Short Film, To Watch

From around the web:

http://www.fusedfilm.com/ Michael Lee

that was the most exciting 8 minutes of my life. Wes Ball can have eight more of them as I will be watching this video again.
Big Boss

Impressive. MOST impressive..
Leinergroove

Great! The guy deserves some recognition and a director's chair somewhere...
ocp

A W E S O M E
Jezebel

Wow, a short film that actually DOESN'T suck. Movie studios, listen up! Give this man $100 million NOW!
HyperJ

VERY cool!
jah p

Incredible!!! This is the best short film I've seen period!Now this is the guy Warner Bros should get to make Akira! this is awesome!!
Movieman DownUnder

Absolutely Incredible, he has just showcased his CV to hollywood. now stay tuned for the next chapter.
Laframboys

Incredible considering its a " just for fun, passion project" I agree with the above posters...give this guy a big bucket of money and some quality programers and let him play. no one cares about yet another retarded remake/rehash/rebake.
Jedibilly

To be continued...... YEEAAAAH!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ5hK-D8kRQ Crapola

I liked it for sure, the character was good too. Pierced cap though? he he just kidding. He sort of had anime proportions with being so tall and skinny. The world looked good and the story left you wanting to find out a bit more about the world. On another cg note, I saw this promo trailer thing for a computer game about killing kings or some nonsense, but it was pretty decent. I don't play computer games but it seems they have better motion graphics than a lot of movies these days. Apparently the money is better for the creatives because people still buy computer games, unlike movies. Have a look anyways. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ajukUlRKdA
- David Banner
  
  Your loss as The Witcher II is one of the best VG ever made This latest trailer, that you have linked, for the release on Xbox, is astonishing.
  - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ5hK-D8kRQ Crapola
    
    Yep it looked pretty mad, I think the last game I played was Ico about a hundred years ago, but I'm always impressed but the short films for games and often the worlds seem to be way better than movies. That's maybe to do with the pacing and how games unfold. The person who finds the correct formula for game to film conversion will have the mega-dollars in his bank. That last set piece in the clip where the guy kills all those folk is so well choreographed and it could never really be done in live action. Both those shorts were better than a lot of feature length films I've watched recently, I just dunno what happens sometimes in the making of films, it seems for all the movies being made, it is so so hard to make something semi-decent.
- MaybeKnot
  
  The guy was skinny because it was clearly a woman.
821

Id like to see this in full length movie or game form.
Tonker

very , very good would like to see the idea expanded into a film ..
JP

Not sure why the guy had to do a frontflip on to the craft... but hey, it was a pretty bad ass short. The shot selection of the chase blew my mind.
Bob

The shot at the end made me think this guy could probably make the dark tower series look insanely good.
Davidbryan949

this short looks alot like the game Enslaved
Leroy

I guess I have to be the naysayer here. But there is a reason someone like Blomkamp goes on to feature films. He made 5-10 minute shorts that actually had a story. This is an action scene, not a short story - and a pretty ridiculous one at that. It's good to know that in the future, guided missiles only go 40mph. Graphics - absolutely top notch. But I didn't see anything that makes me think that this guy can write a story.
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ5hK-D8kRQ Crapola
  
  Story isn't that important Leroy, Transformers actually had 3 films made without any hint of a story between the explosions. I get what you mean though, the plot was very thin, the flying machine thing a little terrible at killing him. What's important is that he made it, I'd rather look at a bunch of films like this than nothing at all.
- HyperJ
  
  It's pretty clear the "missile" was based on these kinds of tests: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC97wdQOmfI&feature=related (really cool video) - slower precise kill/tracking weapons. And it's cool to see something different. I thought it was a cool clip - although you are correct in that there really is no story here.
  - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ5hK-D8kRQ Crapola
    
    Stuff like that scares me, I just imagine one being in my house.
- Vietnamthemovie
  
  I agree Leroy. Don't give this guy any money or we will just have more boring CGI fests every year. Graphics took two years but the concept/story? Spaceship chases a man. C'mon! Pixar's shorts are far better. Remember the 'Dead Island' trailer?
Theoct8pus

Has anyone noticed the James Cameron tributes he threw in there? The drone was very Terminator-esque, the whole motorcycle chase in the alleyway is also reminiscent of T-2 and at minute 4:00 he sees a sign for "Cameron Freeway"
- grimjob
  
  Nice. I caught the first two, but missed the freeway sign.
location were great

I agree with Leroy. It was just a chase with no story. Now, everything except the skinny video game style guy was brilliant. The design work alone was fantastic, but story is important, and so is logic. Let's say you were living in a post apoc type world, and were hunted by drone type machine...and let's say you are looking of something important. Do you really think you'd shove a case filled with important objects out of a skyscraper and out into the open where you can be seen by drones? Or might you look at it in hiding...and since the thing you want is made out of glass (?) do you really want to chance shattering it. This stuff is important, not nit picks. A comparison to Transformers is not relevant. We would hope that big studio films like that get dumbed down so that they can make tons of cash. But there's no reason for a short, independent film to be lacking in ideas.
Johnny Neat

Logic aside, it was fun. Granted I wouldn't hype the story aspect but everything we well rendered, except the guy. His animation was meh. The James Cameron love fest was funny to me. Anyhow wonder what else this guy has up his sleeve.
Johnny Neat

P.s. If Michael Bay can be considered a good and to some a great director why not Wes Ball? Seriously.
Micko96

Outstanding! I see some bloggers are very hard to please....dead set people- if you can do better, then away you go and produce something else to pop our eyes out. Good luck with that. Meanwhile, thank you Mr Ball for a very, very entertaining eight or so minutes. Cheers mate.
Drew

This wasn't that special and on top of that he did not do his due diligence since the bike kept shifting up, the rider did not clutch in or brake at all (animation), and to top it all off, even his running animation seemed way too fast / off beat.