Shift
The story of a man in a lighthouse in the middle of the Arctic Circle.
SHIFT: is the story of a man in a lighthouse in the middle of the Arctic Circle. His days are long and lonely, and the memories of his beloved are everywhere, a constant reminder of his new life of solitude. He tries to find solace in his work, tracing the movement of the sun throughout the day and operating the lighthouse at the night, but it’s not the same without her.
As the Equinox draws nearer, his spirits lift slightly, but the anticipation is almost worse. When the time comes, our sailor shaves off his months of beard growth and dons a full tuxedo and top hat. He locks the door to the lighthouse and, with the setting sun he walks into the icy water…
…but what he finds below is not the end, just another beginning.
In this, her third short film, Alison Paul continues to play with the limitations that analog animation presents. Creating all effects in-camera, Alison fabricated all assets in paper and animated every scene by hand, exploring the answers to the questions: How expressive is the face of an etching? How does the ocean move in three planes? How does the sun set in a paper sky?
