Personified Email Creatures Accidentally Start a War Between Co-Workers in the Animated Short ‘IN_BOX’

In the animated short “IN_BOX” by filmmaker Michael Marczewski (previously) commissioned by Adult Swim, a couple of office workers start chatting with each other through email. In this world, emails are personified beings that crawl over to the recipient’s computer, climb inside and then send an alert for new mail. While this exchange was taking place, a slow-moving email being bumped into a cup of coffee. The sudden burst of caffeine short-circuited the messenger and the tone of the outgoing message was changed. This error started an all-out war that could only be settled by an email that understood the situation.

Two workers send emails to each other in their office cubicle. Each e-mail is a physical cuboid creature that crawls across the desk to the receiving computer. This allows objects on the desk to interrupt messages and cause them to be corrupted in the real world, leading to some unintended office tension.

IN BOX Coffee

via Vimeo Staff Picks

Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.