Mean Green
by Francois van Reenen
"You have seen the earth burn ... The time has come to fight back." Thus is Francois van Reenen's latest anti-hero introduced in Mean Green, the tale of "one man's journey from concerned citizen to gun-toting environmental extremist as the planet struggles to survive overpopulation and rampant pollution".
A independent animated filmmaker, Van Reenen is well known for his unmistakeably South African, darkly comic Suburban Mishaps series, which can be viewed on www.frank.co.za along with Revenge, a cross-species love story.
Mean Green is a combination of 2D (Flash) and 3D (Studio MAX) animation. "It's not like Pixar or anything - it's jerky, South Park style (sort of)," says Van Reenen. Envisaged as a 60-minute film, Mean Green episodes one and two are currently complete and were screened recently at the four-day mini-festival 'Post' at the Bijou in Cape Town. Episode two is currently online, but keep watching Van Reenen's site for further instalments ...
