He dropped from the sky, naked, marched into a bar and demanded ‘your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle.’ A traceless robot visitor from the not too distant future, here to create alien-inspired feature films with a grimy CG style.
Judging by much of the mainstream coverage, District 9 director Neill Blomkamp seems to have arrived onto the film scene from nowhere, with nothing but some vague fallen-through Halo project to his name.
In fact, the South African-born director who studied at the Vancouver Film School, spent the late ’90s honing his craft as a 3D animator on the likes of Stargate and Smallville. And for the last few years, Blomkamp has, in fact, been building a name for himself as a heavyweight commercials director.
Spot: Evolution
Client: Nike
This little spot is the one that started it all. Blomkamp found recognition as an up-and-coming commercials director back in 2004 at the CPF-e/shots Young Director Award with this ad, which sees a Nike Air sneaker shed layers of history via the medium of stop motion. There’s a charming hand-crafted tone to the spot that he seems to have grown out of, but even then Blomkamp was showing traces of the multimedia style and animated realism that was to inform District 9.
Spot: Rain
Client: Gatorade
Themes of evolution and larval spawning continue in this spot for Gatorade. This time Michael Jordon emerges from a basketball chrysalis. Mmm. Gooey.
Spot: Crab
Client: Nike
Back to Nike again, and Blomkamp seems to be sharpening up his trademark style. Here he combines the shaky shifting focus of a documentary with deceptively lo-fi looking CG robot crabs. Damn, that man loves his robots.
Spot: Yellow
Client: adidas
A couple of years back, adidas sponsored a branded content project whereby several aspiring directors were selected to make short films for the sportswear brand, each themed around a colour. Blomkamp drew the short straw with yellow (bleurgh) but the end result was this Saffa-based mockumentary. And yes. There are robots.
Spot: Alive with technology
Client: Citroen
Come on, you must remember this one. The break dancing Transformer-reject robot who John Travolta’d for Citroen? It’s slicker and bigger than his previous efforts and, more importantly, features the campest robot since C3PO – which while not necessarily a ‘good thing’ is certainly an interesting prospect.
Tempbot
In 2006, Blomkamp showed his human side in a short that explored the difficulties of being an emotionally stunted temp struggling to fit in with office life. Okay, yes, it’s still about robots. Blomkamp’s combination of awkward comedy, ’80s production design and sophisticated robotics can best be described as ‘Transformers meets The Office’.
Halo
In 2007 this Blomkamp-directed Halo short hit the web, arousing semis across the geekosphere. It seemed that he had found his true calling, and that Blomkamp was about to do the unthinkable – make a semi-decent computer game adaptation. Alas. It was not to be.
Alive in Joberg
This be the film. After his Halo movie project fell through, Blomkamp returned to his 2005 short Alive in Joberg for his next feature project. Forming the backbone of District 9, Alive in Joberg sees Blomkamp develop his story telling abilities, find his voice and prove that he has more to offer the world than sneaker ads.
