Date: 2007
Posted by: pulsetv.ir
Credits: Created by Alireza Alborzi
Cast: The Simpsons
Duration: 1.46

One doesn’t expect to find Shakespeare parodies on an Iranian web TV channel, but that’s where this video resides (specifically on Pulsetv.ir, which is a channel on Blip.tv). It’s a mash-up of scenes from assorted episodes of The Simpsons to produce the world’s favourite American family’s interpretation of Othello. Homer is Othello, Marge is Desdemona, Sideshow Bob is Iago – it all just falls into place. The humour is doubled by the portentous trailer commentary, cheekily lifted from the trailer for Oliver Parker’s feature film Othello (as are the closing titles). Silly stuff, but done well.

Links:
Blip.tv page

Date: 2009
Posted by: John Carson McCarthy
Credits: Created by John McCarthy
Cast: None
Duration: 0.54

A striking animated intepretation of Othello, without characters or any action from the play. Instead, and using the Maya and After Effects animation programmes, the filmmaker illustrates Othello’s turmoil and self-destruction through images of a house collapsing and turning into a prison. A few quotations appear as signposts. Brief and rudimentary as it is, this is a startlingly imaginative piece of work.

Links:
Vimeo page

Date: 2003
Posted by: abnormalpapsmear
Credits: Inappropriate Emotion Theatre presents. Music and animation by Greg Wrenn. Some models provided by Eggington Productions
Cast: Greg Wrenn (Hamlet), Philip Michaels (Ghost)
Duration: 3.26

Very enjoyable jokey computer animation, depicting Hamlet’s encounter with the ghost. There is more invention here in three minutes than many films have at thirty times the length. Swooping camera, dynamic low-level tracking shots, striking changes in angle, surprise visual references (the use of a slot machine), grand music and of course the unexpected factor of having the parts played by what the filmmaker calls mutant teddy bears. Yes it’s silly, but all the words are there, and it’s done in a spirit of affectionate fun.

Links:
YouTube page
Cheese Wars (website with Hamlet Act 2)

Date: 2006
Posted by: RobbieDingo
Credits: Story, animation, props, camera work and original music by Rob Wright, a.k.a. Robbie Dingo
Cast: Second Life animated figures
Duration: 3.27

This unusual and rather haunting animation was made as a Machinima movie (filmmaking within real-time, 3D virtual environments) in Second Life. It takes as its inspiration the ‘All’s the world’s a stage’ speech from As You Like It (Act 2 Scene 7), and calls itself Stage because of its stage-like setting, its reflection on the stages of life, and ‘The Seven Ages of Man’. Apart from the opening quotation and the expressed intentions of the author (whose Second Life identity is ‘Robbie Dingo’) there is little that connects the film with Shakespeare’s work, but inspiration is as important as interpretation to BardBox. A succession of fathers and sons play a circular tune on a piano, the boys growing up to be men and accompanied by their sons in their turn. All the while a toy train circles round and round endlessly. The figures may verge on the creepy, but the film has something.

The was Winner of the Best Film award in the June 2006 Alt-Zoom festival.

Links:
YouTube page
Internet Archive page
My Digital Double, Robbie Dingo’s blog

Date: 2007
Posted by: lpdisney
Credits: Storyboard and animation by Liron Peer, background colouring by Shaul Dadon
Cast: Shaul Dadon (Ophelia), Liron Peer (Hamlet)
Duration: 0.48

An animation of Act 3 Scene 2 of Hamlet (‘Lady, shall I lie in your lap?’), made by a student in the third year of Animation Studies at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. The animation is assured but conventional; the novelty comes in that the dialogue is in Hebrew (without subtitles). Title and credits are bi-lingual.

Links
YouTube page
Liron Peer’s website

Date: 2007
Posted by: HarassedTofu
Credits: Directed, filmed and edited by Kimberley Durkin, for Harassed Tofu Productions
Cast: Eggs (voices by Kimberley Durkin)
Duration: 5.01

Rudimentary (to say the least) animation with eggs, telling us the story of Shakespeare’s Stratford home life, starting from the point where the young Shakespeare is taken to see a play and becomes besotted by the theatre. The film ends poignantly with the death of his son Hamnet (yolk is spilt), commemorated by words from King John (Act 3 Scene 4), ‘If that be true, I shall see my boy again’, while Carmina Buruna plays in the background. Cracking.

Links
YouTube page

Date: 2008
Posted by: Z4Films
Credits: Produced, animated, edited and directed by Tyler Zeiger for Z4 Films. Music selections given in the end credits
Cast: Voices by Tyler Zeiger
Duration: 5.10

Claymation version of the confrontation between Tybalt, Benvolio, Mercutio and Romeo, ending in the death of Tybalt, from Act 3 Scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet, performed on a tabletop with toy castle and faceless clay figures in single, bright colours. A rather engaging home-made effort, with good variety of shots, if not always in perfect focus. Shakespeare’s words are delivered in earnest monotone, with the occasional ‘dude’ thrown in. Produced as a school project, but the filmmaker has gone on to produce many more such claymation works for his Z4 Films.

Links
YouTube page

Date: 2008
Posted by: vcelloho
Credits: Character models by C. David Claudon. An Intro to Shakespeare and Company Film
Cast: Voices: Mariam Awaisi (Viola), Tommy Benfey (Sebastian), David Goff (Orsino), Carla Oppenheimer (Olivia), Jonathan Ho (Antonio, Sir Toby, Sir Andrew), Marissa Ho (Maria), Liam Hynes (Malvolio)
Duration: 5.45

A reasonably amusing spoof Twelfth Night using cut-out figures in Gilliam-style, but despite some creative touches it doesn’t really do much beyond mocking the play’s familiar highlights (though curiously showing us nothing of Malvolio’s yellow stockings). The drollest touch is to have Viola played by … a viola (disguised by a moustache). Shakespeare’s words are not used.

Links
YouTube page

Date: 2008
Posted by: ryanspeaks2007
Credits: Created by ryanspeaks2007
Duration: 1.00

Speeded-up or reduced Shakespeare has been done so often we may have forgotten what the joke was for. Is it a wish to hold up to ridicule that which the prevailing culture holds to be sacrosanct? Does it demonstrate that our familiarity with the plays is such that they need only minimal reference to trigger an understanding? Or is Shakespeare just innately funny, especially when he wants to be serious?

Whichever of these, the joke too often falls flat. Until, that is, someone does it well, as they do here. This is an unapologetically crude (in execution) cartoon that whizzes us through the salient points of Hamlet, making us laugh at just how much it manages to cram into those sixty seconds, making its point all the more by its division of the action into scenes. It also has its own nonsense way with words (“The King’s a thing with a ring on a string”). Look out for the timer in the bottom-left corner, to ensure that the video remains as good as its word. The perfect last-minute revision text.

Links
YouTube page

Date: 2007
Posted by: JesseMeza07
Credits: Written by Jesse Meza, animated by Jesse Meza and Nick Sampson, artwork by Nick Sampson
Cast: Jesse Meza (voices)
Duration: 3.50

Genuinely funny cut-down Flash animated version of Hamlet, apparently produced as a school project, though at times it looks too professional. A little more attention to the final scenes, where the filmmakers appear to have become a bit bored with their subject, would have turned it into a good film. The video skims through the ghost’s first appearace (“Casper? Is that you?”), ‘to be or not to be’, Hamlet’s questionable sexuality, the ghost telling Hamlet that he is his father (“Wow, you can recite Star Wars quotes”), a play performed by sock puppets entitled “How a King killed his brother and married his wife”, a bloodbath of revenge in which everyone dies, and Fortinbras becomes king (“Pretty dull, right?”). The result is not just a spoof of the familiar, but highlights those aspects of the play that might seem ridiculous, dull or simply not credible to a high school audience. It puts up to ridicule those absurdities all too evident to the indifferent.

Links
YouTube page