VOTD: 'Hambuster'

To paraphrase Sam Elliott's Big Lebowski character: "Sometimes, you eat the burger... and sometimes, the burger, well, he eats you." That seems to be the moral of today's VOTD, Hambuster, about an evil hamburger determined to eat everything in its path. The funny and rather impressive seven-minute short was created by students from French digital filmmaking school Supinfocom, and is also available in 3D. Watch it after the jump — unless you were about to eat a cheeseburger for lunch. In that case, I'd recommend saving it til later.

[via The Daily What]

Hambuster was directed by a team of five Supinfocom students named Paul Alexandre, Dara Cazamea, Maxime Cazaux, Romain Delaunay and Bruno Ortolland. We've featured a couple of other shorts from the school in the past — StopMo and Meet Buck were also Supinfocom projects. I think Hambuster may be my favorite one yet. The top-notch animation is as crisp, detailed and vivid as some professional productions, and the team clearly has an eye for action.

What I really love, though, is the gleefully destructive vibe that runs through the entire film. I feel for the poor human protagonist, but I can't help cheering on the hamburger as it rampages through the city, simply because it seems to be enjoying itself so damn much. I look forward to seeing more from these folks (the filmmakers, not the evil food) in the future.

Here's the filmmakers' description of their film:

You may like having a good lunch in a quiet place as a park... But what if your lunch doesn't? In the street everyone can hear you scream, but honestly who cares?

And yes, we dug up a YouTube version for those of you who can't watch Vimeo. It's not quite as nice-looking as the Vimeo version, and it's got some weird aspect ratio issues, but you'll get the idea:

Finally, here's a black & white 3D version: