Rob Cunningham and Tony Mullen
Rob Cunningham
Rob Cunningham directed and co-wrote the 2000 short film "The Devices of Gustav Braustache, Bachelor of Science", which won top prize in The Stranger newsweekly's first annual film and video competition in Seattle.
In 2002 he co-directed the dance film "Ellie", choreographed by Corrie Befort. "Ellie" has screened at New Dance Cinema in Seattle, the Cinedans Festival in the Netherlands, and the Dance Camera West Festival at the Getty Center in Los Angeles.
His latest short film, "Gustav Braustache and the Auto-Debilitator", is the result of several years of work, many blown fuses, and a forfeited damage deposit. Rob currently lives in Seattle.
Tony Mullen
Tony Mullen is a screenwriter, filmmaker, and animator. He co-wrote the award-winning film "The Devices of Gustav Braustache, Bachelor of Science".
He has worked as a professional cartoonist for several newspapers in the US and the Czech Rebublic. He is also working on a series of computer animated short stories, entitled "Uncle Leotard's Appropriate Stories".
Tony currently lives in Tokyo.
Directors' Statement
"Gustav Braustache, the main character of our film, is a determined and inspired inventor, who often finds it difficult to pay attention to things beyond the immediate focus of his creative energies. Perhaps, on some level, this oddball is a reflection of ourselves. Not that we're geniuses like he is, or especially brilliant or well-regarded in our fields, or anything like that...
"But, like him, we do have a hard time really paying any attention or caring much about anything other than whatever inane project we happen to be working on at the moment. This is where we derive our pleasure and our satisfaction in life. This is what makes it all worthwhile.
"Naturally, above all else, we hope that some of the pleasure and giddiness we derived in creating this film might kind of rub off on the viewer. We hope that for the duration of our film, the viewer too can focus on the strange and hopefully very entertaining world that we have striven to create, and forget about the day to day drudgery of his or her life: cat hair, workday commutes, lower back pain, awkward meetings with superiors to determine what's up with the blank stares, et cetera.
"Wouldn't it be a better world if everybody could pay more attention to funny, interesting things, and not so much attention to crap?"
