Maestro
Maestro
| 01 May 2005 (USA)
Maestro Trailers

Five minutes before his big performance, the Maestro and his persistent mechanical assistant are getting ready. As the clock ticks, life at the top is not all it seems.

Reviews
Greenes Please don't spend money on this.
Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.
Breakinger A Brilliant Conflict
Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.
Gordon-11 This short film is about the minutes that an opera singer preparing for a performance."Maestro" is funny and entertaining. It features a cute chicken like opera singer, preparing for a performance with the help of an automated arm device. The angle is constantly shifting, so it gives the viewers different perspective every second. The music is nice, the opera singing is convincing. The end twist is unexpected and funny, and it certainly made me laugh. However, as a stand alone animation, I think it is a rather forgettable effort. It gives a laugh, and nothing else. I can't say it is particularly artistic or groundbreaking.
TxMike This is one of the short films nominated in 2006 for an Academy Award, it is part of a collection on DVD. It is done is modern computerized animation and is very well made. Watch it if you ever have the chance.The tile of the DVD is "A Collection of 2006 Academy Award Nominated Short Films."SPOILERS - DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE FILM SHORT YET.We see what appears to be a bird who is an opera singer, he is in his dressing room, warming up his vocal cords, while his robotic assistant helps dress him, tend to his makeup, and prepare him for the upcoming performance. It has all the trappings of a real opera singer getting ready. Only at the end do we realize that he is actually inside a clock, and the performance is the hourly chime "coo-coo" in the clock.
Niffiwan This is funny, well-crafted, computer-animated short film that'll give you a good laugh if you watch it. You can find it for free online (and legally) by searching for it at the "Portable Film Festival".The fact I'm giving the film a 6 does not at all mean that I disliked it - as another user said, the film moves in a very deliberate way to a funny conclusion that you the viewer will probably not expect. It's definitely worth a look.The thing is, that's all there is to it. The film sets its target low and does a great job of achieving it, but it's still a low target. I'm not sure that it has enough in it to deserve an Oscar nomination (especially when exemplary artistic masterpieces such as Aleksandr Petrov's "My Love" were left out of the list). It's a fine film that's worth watching, but it's still only based around a rather short, simple joke and doesn't aim for anything higher.
Skeeter700 This short animated film shows a great performer preparing to take to the stage in the last few minutes before the curtain rises. With the help of a mechanical arm, a feathered "Maestro" is groomed and exercises his voice. "The Maestro" was directed by The Hungarian film maker Géza M. Tóth and it competed in over 40 international animation competitions and gained a nomination for an Academy Award. The Maestro is well-animated slowly builds for its five minute run up to one fantastic joke. The animation is solid and the technique of having the camera circle three-hundred-sixty degrees around the characters helps build the suspense towards its funny finale. The sound is well dubbed and matches the tone of the images being presented. Overall, "The Maestro" is a short of great quality.