Heartless: The Story of the Tin Man

In 1900, L. Frank Baum wrote The Won­der­ful Wiz­ard of Oz, which went on to become one of the most beloved chil­dren’s books of all time, reprint­ed and rein­vent­ed in a myr­i­ad stage plays, films, TV series, musi­cals and oth­er adap­ta­tions. But Baum’s orig­i­nal tale fea­tured a lit­tle-known back­sto­ry about the Tin Woods­man – a moral­i­ty tale about a man who gets so caught up in his work that he los­es sight of what real­ly mat­ters in life.

Direc­tor Bri­an McCormick decid­ed to cap­ture this poet­ic tale and the hid­den love sto­ry about a sim­ple woods­man and a beau­ti­ful maid­en in Heart­less: The Sto­ry of the Tin Man — an art­ful­ly shot short film, view­able for free online.

Addi­tion­al behind-the-scenes footage reveals the pro­duc­tion process and metic­u­lous crafts­man­ship of the film’s art direc­tion, sound design and cin­e­matog­ra­phy.

Maria Popo­va is the founder and edi­tor in chief of Brain Pick­ings, a curat­ed inven­to­ry of eclec­tic inter­est­ing­ness and indis­crim­i­nate curios­i­ty. She writes for Wired UK, GOOD Mag­a­zine, Big­Think and Huff­in­g­ton Post, and spends too much time curat­ing inter­est­ing­ness on Twit­ter.