Looking Back: Chris Jarvis' "The Birds Upstairs"

Visions 2012 featured both strangely beautiful and beautifully strange endeavors in undergraduate filmmaking—"The Birds Upstairs" perhaps chief among them.

 From siblings falling in love to naked figures crawling in a field of hay, there were several films that appealed to the subversive side of viewers at Visions 2012.




Few films stood out more so, however, than Chris Jarvis’s stop-motion animated film “The BirdsUpstairs,” winner of the festival's highest honor, The Visionary Award.  A production of New York University Tisch School of the Arts, "The Birds Upstairs" combines poetic artistry and twisted imagination.

The film follows the efforts of an aristocratic couple to conceive children in the early nineteenth century.  The husband and wife are unlike any of whom you are familiar with; they are birds, or rather, bird skeletons, outfitted with Victorian Era clothing.  After years of yearning, the couple finally gets what they have hoped for.  Or so they think.

Check out the teaser trailer:



Jarvis, who is credited in every department of production, makes use of both title cards and voice over narration to tell his story.  While many student works rely on such conventions as a crutch for creativity, these elements are complimentary to the film's tone and visual style.  "The Birds Upstairs" often indulges in the ambiance of bright, detailed, and elegant settings.  The birds' jittery movements are accentuated by snapping and cracking sounds like bones creaking against one another.  Add to these qualities a musical tone that frequently shifts from light to eerie, and the film becomes somewhat of a dark fairy tale that explores themes including, but certainly not limited to, appearance and acceptance.



As is the case with many featured guests of the Visions Film Festival and Conference, the film world has not heard the last of Chris Jarvis.  Having produced, written, shot, directed, and edited short films since the age of fifteen, Jarvis has carved his own path, and the accumulation of awards speaks to that proactivity.  His latest film "Culling Hens" is currently in post-production and early plot synopses hint at another provocative story from a clearly gifted mind.

Visit Chris Jarvis's website and IMDB page to check out what he's done and where he is now.

—by Joey Powell

The 'Looking Back' series of articles spotlights past filmmakers and presenters who have made the Visions Film Festival & Conference a memorable and exciting annual event.