"Robbie" on IMDb
"Robbie" on Singularity Weblog
Printable View
https://vimeo.com/40524878
"Robbie"
April 17, 2012
Quote:
Set 6000 years the future, Robbie charts the existential reflections of an aging robot drifting alone through space on the last of his battery life.
About the film:
I am Neil Harvey, a director and editor from Sydney, Australia. This video is a short film I created as an anniversary present for my girlfriend a few months ago.
The film-making process involved downloading about 10 hours of footage from the NASA archives and compiling a list of shots which resonated with me at some level. I did this over about 2 or 3 months when I had the spare time. From there, I put these selected shots on an editing timeline and watched them back until characters and narratives began developing in my mind. That is when i met Robbie.
A lot of people have read 'Robbie' as a rather sad story. My personal reading is that I find it to be a bit more uplifting, perhaps even celebratory. While it was not my intention to have "a message", I was certainly interested in the way we confront death and the issue of not ever waking up again. I also felt that by transposing such themes onto an AI character, it would provide a much more compelling vehicle through which to explore these ideas than if we were watching a human protagonist. I'm not sure about anyone else, but I definitely find value in my life by occasionally thinking about how lucky I am that I was actually born at all. I guess this is why I find the film to be more cathartic than depressing.
My biggest thank you to all the talented film-makers and animators at NASA. Also, thank you to Jason Sondhi and the rest of the Vimeo team for their continued support of independent film-makers across the world.
https://youtu.be/6-QadRk2Be8
"Robbie"
Published on Jul 10, 2012
Quote:
The story of Robbie follows the touching recollection of an artificially intelligent robot's time on Earth, until that time comes to an inevitable end.
Robbie is a tender science fiction film that revels in the joy and sympathizes with the sadness of Robbie's 'life' and explores the concept of accepting life must someday end.
"I liked the idea of transposing that sentiment through a being with artificial intelligence, as it makes it a little less confronting for the audience."
It is a credit to Harvey's editing skills that none of the footage in Robbie is his own; instead, Harvey chose to create a film using only footage taken from the NASA archives, piecing material together to form his narrative.
Brought to life through footage of NASA's Robonaut, the character of Robbie is both captivating and touching.
The voiceover narrative -- told from Robbie's point of view -- is somehow simultaneously robotic and human, and by the film's end successfully creates an emotional bond between robot and audience.
When asked about how he develops his narratives, Harvey tells of thoroughly researching concepts over time to allow his ideas to flourish.