Guten Appetit! Graduate film ‘Chef Gustav’ Serves Up Laughs at Vienna Film Festival 

Chef Gustav, a short film made by Luke Frangeskou (MA Animation 2023) has been selected to screen at SLASH Film Festival in Vienna. We asked Luke about the process and how it feels to be selected: 

Congratulations on the selection! How did the film come about? 

I originally started as a 2D animator during an undergraduate degree, and decided to branch out into stop motion because I found it fascinating with how tangible and physical the process was. So, for my postgraduate project ‘Chef Gustav’ at UWE, I decided to make a stop motion short film that drew from my 2D experience, by incorporating 2D characteristics such as exaggeration and smear frames; I wanted to see if stop motion can be as fluid and zany as 2D animation can be. I achieved this by animating on a multiplane, where the plasticine characters were on a glass sheet with a background underneath and a camera up above pointing downwards, to create the desired effect of a flat mould appearing as a full-bodied chef in a kitchen. 

The trailer for the film is available to watch here:

What were the main influences on the style of the film? 

My main influences were from comedic and slapstick violence I found in cartoons such as ‘Tom and Jerry’ for its hilarious fight scenes, ‘Ren and Stimpy’ with their faces and bodies contorted to extreme levels and ‘Happy Tree Friends’ for its over-the-top gore mixed with a cute and colourful art-style you’d find in a children’s cartoon. As for the stop motion and how to achieve this, I took inspiration from ‘Rex the Runt’ and ‘Kiri and Lou’, which both used multiplane animation with plasticine, and I made press moulds of the characters that I could replicate and re-sculpt when needed. I also love cats for how cute they can be but I don’t love some of the things they do! 

How does it feel to have the film selected for SLASH? 

It felt wonderful being selected! SLASH Film Festival put ‘Chef Gustav’ in their ‘Fantastic Futures’ screening, which is a run of short films from filmmakers who the festival believe have bright futures in genre cinema and their careers, and this is definitely encouraging to say the least! It was also great to meet and chat with the other filmmakers in that screening! 

What’s next? 

My plans right now are to keep submitting ‘Chef Gustav’ to other film festivals, carry on applying for animation-related job positions and send off my portfolio to animation studios. I’d also quite like to make another short film in the future so I’m back to the drawing board with a couple of story ideas I’ve got at the moment. Hopefully to the same quality as ‘Chef Gustav’! 

Discover more about Luke’s work through following him on instagram and vimeo.