Best Animation
God’s Early Work is the story of the creation of life on earth. It begins with God (voiced by Michael McElhatton), a joker from Wexford, and his son Jesus amusing themselves by creating wildlife which is, although familiar to us, a source of comedy to them. After an introduction to God and Jesus we visit Satan (voiced by Peter McDonald), a young accident prone Goth from Dublin, with a penchant for heavy metal music. Satan lives in a boiler room in the basement of God’s workshop. He is alone, rejected by God and feels left out of the action. Bored, he distracts himself by fidgeting with items he finds around the room and playing air-guitar.
God and Jesus laugh and dance their way through a lively creation scene until their progress is interrupted by the ringing of a phone. Satan is on the line. A conversation ensues the basis of which is Satan’s appeal to be included in ‘the project’. God deflects his requests, offers him a vague ‘we’ll see’ and hangs up. The momentum broken, God and Jesus head off for a panini leaving the creation room empty.
A door creaks open and Satan pokes his head through. He has sneaked into the workshop. He creeps toward God’s creation desk and begins to play with the materials thereon. Satan’s creation becomes apocalyptic and manic as he gets carried away to an insane degree. Just as Satan’s creation reaches it’s climax, God’s voice cuts through the Chaos. Just as Satan had interrupted God’s creation, now God interrupts Satan’s. Satan stands like a schoolboy having been caught misbehaving. He expresses his regret but it is too late. God pulls the plug on the creation and leaves the room leaving Satan alone and dejected pondering the error of his ways.
In the final scene of the film we track back towards the planet Earth. We are introduced to Satan’s blunder. A crowd of humans stand ominously motionless in a barren landscape. Birds scatter. The humans are given life and instantly begin to run amok across the land causing mayhem to it’s other inhabitants.
God’s Early work is a ten minute black comic stop-motion animation.