On some desolate planet, two mining robots encounter each other. That’s the simple premise of Jack Anderson’s short film “Wire Cutters,” which has been featured in two dozen film festivals, was a finalist in the 2015 Student BAFTA Film Awards, and won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Student Film at the Nashville Film Festival. The CGI animated film looks remarkable for an independent short, with the robots having a ton of personality despite a limited range of facial expressions and no dialogue. A cute film with a dark undertone (and kind of a bummer ending), “Wire Cutters” showcases some impressive talent. Anderson completed the film while still an undergraduate at Chapman University, and he said on Reddit that he did it with a “$0 budget but thousands of hours of love and about a YEAR of rendering.”
It’s like Wall-E, but much shorter and with more squabbling.
Wire Cutters from Jack Anderson on Vimeo.