Natural Selection (2003) Online

This short SF film implies a great deal. You get the feeling that there is a whole world just outside that the director of the film knows about but the viewer is left to imagine for himself. This can be a good thing because the film is richer and more textured that the short length and small budget will allow for. However, since so little is explained, the viewer is left feeling a little bit confused. It states at the beginning of the film that pretty much all animal life is genetically engineered, but it doesn't explain who the opposing sides are. Why are the bad guys bad and what are the good guys trying to accomplish. You know they're good guys but you don't know why you're supposed to be rooting for them. However, the reality viewed through this very small window is sharp and clear. You don't doubt that whatever these people are trying to do is very important. It's a good film, well written, well acted, well directed, but just too limited for the scope of its concepts.

I've watched this short a couple of times and what's interesting is that in such a short period of time the writer/director does an amazing job getting me to care for a character (well, 5 characters) that I know literally nothing about. Each time I watch this, I realize that I want to know more about the story and the world being created here and I watch with fascination the slight, delicate bonding scenes that hook me each time. The filmmakers mix animation and live action to amazing effect. These moments are so well done, I overlook some slightly more "seen-them-before" moments with the "go-on-take-a-shot" bad guy. So while I agree there's not a lot of context to this film (yet!), it's a film worth watching because I bet all kinds of money we're going to see more from Scott Leberecht.

I only caught the end of this film and I really liked it I will have to keep my eyes open to see the full thing to bad it's only 17 minuets long.In my own personal opinion that Ian Nelson should be acting in big budget movies.I gave it only a nine out of ten cause of length. The sets could use some serious improvement but I give the effects a A++ I'm trying my best to give ten lines but like I said I only caught the last five to six minuets and it was enough for me to start looking for some other stuff that this guy has directed.I thought the idea was kind of original some kind of full length movie of him traveling with these rare birds going on some type of quest.