A Little Minx Makes an Exquisite Corpse

Behind each exquisite corpse, there’s an interesting story. Some came to fruition in green clouds of absinthe fueled Surrealism. Others began life with a handful of Sharpie pens and mass quantities of alcohol. And at least one “game” of this collaborative, French parlour pastime involved Ridley Scott, a poster, a commercial production house, and five incredibly talented directors.

The story goes that Jacqueline Bosnjak and Mark Beukes – whose Idealogue studio is responsible for the awesome art-cum-advertising Adicolor vids (Aside: you must watch these, especially Green, which looks like it came out of Black Hole Sun) – approached Rhea Scott with an idea for an experimental, short-form, new media narrative.

She loved the concept and let a handful of her directors at Little Minx – an innovative offshoot of Ridley and Tony Scott’s commercial production house, RSA – have at it. The participants used David Pearson’s movie poster as a muse and established two simple rules:

1) All shorts must include a “little minx.”
2) All shorts must begin with the last line of the short that preceded it.

The result (at least so far – more additions might be in the works) is five independently beautiful stories, loosely connected by script cues and lines of dialogue that, taken as a whole, are greater than the sum of their parts. Take a look:

with the eyes of every man riveted upon her

A nonchalant, charming Lolita commands attention from all the sweaty men in a boxing gym while she wears a smile and bests an extra from Pirates of the Caribbean in a jump-rope-off. Her moves aren’t as good as Mayweather’s but she hops to a sweet soundtrack punctuated by fantastic editing that mixes up the pace.

###she turns back and faces forward at peace – Chris Nelson

A Little Miss Sunshine feel good story about an ordinary girl with mild television aspirations who defies her concerned mother and learns to feel good about herself in the process, except without all the Patch Adams cheese that my description implies.

she walked calmly disappearing into the darkness – Malik Hassan Sayeed

Scenes from an action-packed, dark, gritty street fight juxtapose a stark white hospital room where people gather around a body full of bullets, waiting to see if the boy’s gonna make it. A provocative, surreal mix of fragility and “urban-tough.”

without missing a beat, she asks, “Waffles for Breakfast?” – Josh Miller

A fun, if not predictable, story of card-game-turns-sour-and-someone-ends-up-dead.  The best part about Miller’s contribution is the dialogue. Like a David Milch production (especially Deadwood), the characters communicate with heightened diction that’s unexpected for the scenery – a smoky poker table – and refreshing.

and she stares longingly at what she has lost – Phillip Van

Van tells a fairytale fantasy of innocence lost through incredible special effects, a haunting soundtrack, and a macabre ending. The most contrived of the five (which, given the company, means it’s still great), but also the most visually appealing.

View them all in high-quality at www.LittleMinx.tv and check back to see if any other directors pick up where Van left off.