Shane Acker

[Welcome to the Sci-Fi Lunch Break, where every day we'll be supplying you with a cool bit of audio/visual goodness to break up the monotony of the work day. You bring the turkey on rye, we'll bring you something out of this world to watch while you eat it.]

Shane Acker's 9, set for release on 9/9/09 from Focus Features, is one of the most intriguing titles left on the summer plate. But as much as I am a fan of all the talent behind the voices (Elijah Wood, John C. Reily, Jennifer Connelly, Martin Landau) and the talent standing behind the talent behind the voices (Tim Burton, Timur Bekmambetov), and as much as I've been digging the trailers and loving the 'stitchpunk' art style, I was never hungering to see 9 as soon as humanly possible. Now I am. My need for a journey through a humanless future has turned borderline ravenous.

Sci-Fi Squad honcho Erik Davis passed along the 2005 short film that 9 was expanded from and it's the first piece of the puzzle I've found that really spotlights the vision Shane Acker has. The original 9 is a little over 10 minutes long and without a single line of dialog, but if the feature film version is half as engrossing as this is, we're all in for a real treat.

Watch it after the jump.

At Comic-Con, legends come a dime a dozen, and those are just the ones on the printed pages of the comics on the exhibition hall floor. But in Hall H, the epicenter of the convention's surprises, revelations and exclusives, true groundbreakers and history-makers are in comparatively short supply. This year, however, there were several, including James Cameron, Peter Jackson, Hayao Miyazaki, and Terry Gilliam; but even in such rarified company, Tim Burton stands head and shoulder above in terms of providing memorable, specific, and ongoing inspiration to the folks who like to look up at these filmmakers' latest projects.

Suffice it to say that a checklist of his most iconic films would be redundant, since virtually all of them qualify, either because of their source material, or his interpretation of it. But the filmmaker has two high-profile projects coming out in the next year or so, each of which applies his inventive style in different ways: first, there's 9, Shane Acker's computer-generated post-apocalyptic odyssey, which Burton is producing; and in 2010, there's Alice in Wonderland, his adaptation of the classic novel by Lewis Carroll.

In between Hall H panels, Cinematical caught up with Burton to discuss his work on 9 and Alice in Wonderland. In addition to talking about the technological opportunities and challenges presented on both films, he offered a few secrets about the forthcoming spectacle of Alice, and reflected on the filmmaking style – and substance – that has made his idiosyncratic body of work a happy home for outsiders and mainstream audiences alike.

Friday afternoon Hall H attendees were treated to their second chance to speak to Tim Burton (following his appearance Thursday for Alice in Wonderland), and their first look at the new film 9. Directed by Shane Acker, the film is produced by Burton and Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov, both of whom offered a few insights about their own work as they showcased the results of the first-time filmmaker's adaptation of his own animated short film.

Among the details revealed during the 9 panel: