BLOG: Watching Joseph Pierce‘s new(ish) short The Pub may just be the highlight of your week. He’s finally let it loose online after a significant festival run, and it could be his best film using his rotoscope technique to date. In The Pub, Pierce allows the live action on top of which he’s animated to shine through even more than in his earlier films, creating a particularly disorienting sense for the viewer of what’s real and what’s a make-believe visualization of these pub-goers own demented personalities.

For example, midway through the short a homeless man wanders into the bar and grows the head of a bear. He shoves his snout down a woman’s pint glass and growls at her baby (yes, in England people bring their babies into the pub). Meanwhile, the two geezers in the corner grow tree trunks from their necks. It’s a wild world that Pierce has created, and a dark one at that.

No wonder Pierce cites Czech animator Jan Švankmajeris as one of his greatest inspirations. Both directors make films that play with the ways experimental animation in live action can push narrative, and always with a dry comedic tone. Like Švankmajeris, a new release from Pierce is something not to be missed. Visit his website to see more.