My “billiard movie” definition is rather simple: billiards, whether literally or metaphorically, must be the focus of the film, and the film must be for the purpose of entertainment (and possibly education), but not instruction. There are no requirements around quality, length, distribution, or commercial success. As such, I share with you 5 Billiards Short Films in 16 Minutes. Special thanks to Pool & Billiards Online for introducing me to each of these.
A Game of Pool
Created by Stan Prokopenko in 2004 when he was just a junior in high school, A Game of Pool is a 6-minute 3D animated short film about a rack of billiard balls that split into two teams – solids and stripes – and proceed to “battle” by knocking one another into pockets, with the last ball standing facing off against the 8-ball. It took 4 months for Prokopenko to complete the film, doing everything from teaching himself the Maya animation program to using editing software like Sound Forge and Adobe Premiere. The film is both tongue-and-cheek, yet also clever in its battle scenes, including the 6-ball committing suicide for illegal biting; the 3-ball and the 13-ball squaring off to Ennio Morricone’s instantly recognizable tune “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”; and the 13-ball fighting the 8-ball in a bullet-time effect action sequence to The Propellerheads “Spybreak!” from The Matrix. The film subsequently won some awards at the International Student Media Festival, and was later featured on all American Airlines flights in September through December of 2004.
Boogie Billiards
Another animated billiards short film is Dayle Lange’s 2005 Boogie Billiards, which she submitted for the 2005 Governors School of the Arts scholarship program, and which won best overall film in the 2005 Ocean County Film Festival. This 2-minute stop-motion animation film features a rack of billiards ball dancing, swinging, and spinning to Duke Ellington’s “Cottontail.” It’s mildly humorous how the balls all freeze when the boxer comes down the stairs to check out the sound (similar to the toys freezing in Toy Story when a human enters the room), but otherwise not that interesting.
Pool Talk
Far more humorous is Max Nicholson’s 2-minute billiard short film Pool Talk from 2009. This short film centers on a debate between the 9-ball and the 3-ball about whether it’s better to “end all hunger and disease or bring about lasting world peace.” Using a mix of close-up and long-shots with alternating camera angles, the two balls engage in a discussion that harkens to the movie Clerks, with witty banter, such as “I’m just saying people got to eat. I’d rather end starvation than war. You ever skip lunch? It’s horrendous. I did that once. Plus, if everyone is stuffing their faces, it’s kind of balances out the whole overpopulation thing.” Pointedly absurd, the best line is at the end when an observing ball remarks, “It’s round-the-clock with those fuckin’ guys.” Max Nicholson is currently a writer/reviewer for the entertainment website IGN, and he is also a freelance videographer and video editor.
http://youtu.be/2udVIsk3mZc
Pool and Life
On the serious side is Toby Younis’ Pool and Life from 2011. This 3-minute short film uses the game of pool as a metaphor for overcoming the obstacles that life places in front of you. With the cue ball breaking the rack, it starts, “Without warning, something came along and changed my life, transforming it from a neat package into chaos and shambles.” It then proceeds to show some easy shots (“I took on little things”), harder shots (“Slowly but surely, my confidence returned”), and even carom shots (“Others were willing to help if you let them”). Younis is the owner of Videotero and an independent producer, director and editor. (For a very different use of pool as a metaphor, check out the short film 8-Ball.)
http://youtu.be/wLb98fG4814
Rack ‘Em Up
Finally, there is the disappointing Rack ‘Em Up, filmed some time in 2008 by Jared Kowalcyzk as his final “Introduction to Film” project at Emerson College. Shot in B&W on 16mm film on a Bolex and cut and spliced using a Steenbeck and guillotine splicer, this 3-minute short largely consists of a person making basic pool shots while a narrator provides trite voice-overs such as, “Pool is about luck. The more you play, the luckier you get.”
