Animation Blog

Borivoj Dovnikovic "Curiosity" (1966)

2010-03-11T16:43:00.005Z

Lovers of classic animation should enjoy the second featured film by Zagreb director, Borivoj Dovnikovic. Made in 1966, Curiosity is an amusing study of human foibles. Set on a minimalist stage the lead character sits on the proverbial park bench watching the world go by. The world however is obsessed. It stops and has a peep at the large paper bag perched enigmatically on the vacant berth beside the often dozing man. A dog sniffs the package, children congregate to take a peek, a policeman inspects it, soldiers launch a military manoeuvre against the bag. The absurd is counterpointed with the mundane. A passing ship stops, passengers crane their many necks to take a look and the ship sinks. One passenger struggles ashore, steals a view, before returning to the water. The Zagreb School, as the Croatian animators of the time are known, produced a diverse collection of very fine and indeed striking films. Borivoj’s original short is essentially a single gag animation, finely executed but within the compass of one man or a small studio to produce. In its attitude to life’s absurdities it embraces the Yugoslavian zeitgeist of the times, a freedom to question as well as portray the sheer idiosyncrasy of life, institutions, man's behaviour. Bordo’s Learning To Walk provoked an email bemoaning the dearth of films like this today. I concur. Here we have animation in its purest form, intelligent, crisply drawn and animated, focused humour, adult.

Leigh Hodgkinson "Talented Mouse" (2007)

2010-03-10T19:35:00.006Z

I have been researching the work of Leigh Hodgkinson for an article and am compelled to enthuse about her animated series Talented Mouse made in 2007 for the UK’s Channel 4. Enjoying something of cult status at the time, Kayvan Novak makes a series of telephone calls to an unsuspecting public. (He is the Fonejacker!) If you have not seen the series you will laugh aloud. In the link there are four shorts. In the first, Catnip, the mouse phones up to order sufficient oil to dispose of the family cat. To the internet shopping order he adds certain essentials including a blowtorch to punish the cat for eating mother, father and naïve country cousin. "Are cats flammable?" he asks. If flambéed cat is not to your liking, how about the cheese board? A call to the pest control officer is made for instructions prior to extracting a cubed lump of the stuff from the mousetrap. I have attempted to put together a kitchen from self assembly packs and I know the pitfalls of following instructions. I have never, however, been skewered before. Time to make that call to an adult cheese line where tantalising innuendo of a cheesy nature is exchanged before in the final film of the four on offer, the mouse attempts a liaison at the local underground station during a call to a girl as he endeavours to get a faltering stage career off skid row. A montage of snapshots, video and animation ingeniously illustrate recordings of the squeaky voice. Performer and director obtained their rewards: Kayvan obtained a BAFTA, Leigh an Annecy Crystal. The French town is a lovely place so it’s no palliative but when the mouse squeaks "you lied to me!" down the line the visual trigger of huge gouts of blood has a brilliance that is certainly the equal of the script. In short, the inventive series is full of gratuitous violence towards mouse and cat with humans richly amused. I certainly was. Leigh has just moved over to a brand new studio, Beakus, packed with exciting directors, about which much more at the weekend.

Anatoliy Petrov "The Singing Teacher" (1968)

2010-03-09T20:37:00.006Z

The Singing Teacher was the debut film of the great Russian director, Anatoliy Petrov (1937 – 2010) who died last Wednesday. For an orbituary may I point to an authorative and appreciative digest of Anatoliy's life by Georgiy Borodin, translated by niffiwan. The Singing Teacher takes an incongruously huge hippopotamus into the study of a suitably academic professor who, although initially startled, nevertheless attempts to teach the beast to sing. Hippo’s are not born for the high notes and the old fellow becomes increasingly frustrated as the lesson degenerates. Neither can be faulted for effort however though the scholar has to sink low indeed to raise standards. Stylistically I should point to the realistic manner of the artwork, albeit the hippo has a head and body impossibly squared, the antithesis of art one might think. Anatoliy's work is available widely although comparatively few of his films have English subtitles. I shall certainly write more about his work.

Candy Kugel & Vince Cafarelli "Ooh I Love My Coffee" (2008)

2010-03-08T18:10:00.008Z

In Candy Kugel and Vince Cafarelli one has two of the top professionals around, worked in the business for decades. Frankly, what they don’t know about animation ….. Their offering for Marc Black is an object lesson for wannabees. Ooh I Love My Coffee is served with style and humour, an animated version of one of those exquisite sidewalk cafés where someone on the staff has the pizzazz and talent to illustrate their menus in the traditional manner - I pay more for coffee in joints like this. In concert with Rick Broas from New York’s Buzzco, the various coffee blends are paraded for our delectation. Against a black backdrop (board) the swirls of foam coalesce as a moustache, deftly humorous as the light-hearted lyrics dictate a playful mood. Coffee liberates the senses and libido. Tea quenches thirst. There is a difference. The piece ends in a flourish as our guy basks in a bath of coffee or slurps at his man-size iced extravaganza. Great drawing skills, exhuberant design and a funny song. What more could one ask for? Sake? Chocolate? Ooh I love my coffee.

Carlos Lopez Etrada & Cameron Clark "Chocolate" (Jesse and Joy 2010)

2010-03-07T20:13:00.008Z

The sun shone so brightly today we sat outside. Cheerful day, cheerful song. You’ll love Chocolate by the splendid Jesse & Joy. It’s not just chocolate though, piped icing sugar, biscuits, candies and heaps of the sugar itself. It’s not every day you see all the props for a film boxed up and wished fervently your name was on the package. Directed by Carlos Lopez Etrada with lead animator Cameron Clark, the four minute music video is a sweet mix of digital animation and stop motion work. Cameron explains how he "pre-animated the motion for every shot with After Effects and then used a combination of Dragon Stop Motion, a projector, and a small team of animators to basically trace the motion that I had created digitally". The process works so very well. Completed in four sleep deprived weeks the crew made 3,000 shots of edible confectionery. In essence the two artists strum and sing in a series of framed poses as chocolate bean outlines, or gingerbread man and woman, or leaping over pink wafer rooftops. So biscuit trains blast out sugar steam, Joy is seen as a sand animation save she is formed from more of the granular stuff, and toasted picture puzzles have the sun and moon stamped on them, looking at once colourful and scrumptious. I genuinely like the music, a lilting, happy song, and the crew have compressed so many original confections into the piece that there is not one second lost. Words fail to do justice so have a look behind-the-scenes. In how many videos do you see the guys exhausted at the start of another busy day commence by melting chocolate with a blowtorch? Mexican brother and sister duo Jesse and Joy Huerta released their album Electricidad in September of last year and is now destined for my iPod. One of the finest music videos around at the moment, with not only an ingenious concept but a glorious use of colour and spectacle. And lest I forget, the crew comprised recent graduates and existing students. Working for peanuts or chocolate beans, I guess. Great work. Sake yesterday, chocolate today and, yes, coffee tomorrow. Such riches.

Naoki Misuse "Invisible Again" (2010)

2010-03-06T16:43:00.007Z

I picked up a nasty virus. Only just picking up the reins. So where was I? Ah yes, the story so far. The (invisible) President of fast food giant, the Tattoo Company, has been caught out boosting profits at the expense of the environment by discharging noxious substances into the ocean (Invisible 3). In Naoki Mitsuse’s latest instalment of his saga of big business and SM attired chimpanzees, Invisible Again, the president has to appear, admittedly difficult in his case, before judge and jury. Naturally he hires a hot shot lawyer whose film star looks are pitted against the more earthy charms of the District Attorney who is a pig. Fantasies abound, not the least being that of the blonde jury member or a judge who has ambitions and a busy schedule. Money can buy most things. Naoki has been commissioned for at least one further series by Tateyama Brewing, the Japanese Sake company that bears no relation to Tattoo above. I wrote at some length about Naoki’s style here. Entirely without dialogue his narrative style never falters, full of whimsical asides (the microphone being thrust into the baby’s face, the judge on her surfboard), insouciance and a refreshingly bold use of Flash. And before I was ill I intended to feature three movies where sound was of the essence. Sunday Mitsuru registers just the right mood with his mix of light jazz that speeds everything along without taking itself too seriously. Questions linger. Who is the mysterious beauty and why has the invisible president a set of glasses with three lens? Meanwhile Naoki made a very distinctive commercial for Tateyama blending his particular style of animation with the music of the Greek singer, Anna Vissi. The music reminds me of summer and the images were used on this year’s company calendar. I’ve never tasted sake. But I will now. Make me feel better.

Denis Constantinou & Chara Sottou (co-director) "Fish" & "Hams Off" (2009)

2010-03-01T20:32:00.015Z

Last year’s winner of the Best Student 2D Animation Award at Animex International is now available on-line. Fish was directed by Denis Constantinou with Chara Sottou co-directing. Made at the Arts Institute at Bournemouth, it does what animation does so well, creates an impossible landscape in which the impossible thrives. Thus a line of identical grey men fish from an endless and vast steel island that sprawls from some perpectives like the Great Wall of China. Into this mirthless throng skips a young girl who joins in the sport catching rather more than she bargained for. An imaginative setting then for a film that doesn’t do much for the fishing industry with a lavish dip into the orange palette. Fish bring so much colour into our lives when they are in the water! And inner strength according to the Denis' explanation - unsure what that means, because it's inner. Not limited to 2D, Denis collaborated with a number of Bournmouth MA students (Nicholas Lee, Anthony Magdalinidis. Edward Olive, Wuxan Shi) for the 3D opera in a butchers' shop, Hams Off . Butchers get murderous when their prize hams are purloined. Only 14 weeks in production and I'm impressed. There's a bit of a swagger about it all.

Jae Hee Jung "Little Dark Corners" (2009) & "Handmade" (2007)

2010-02-28T13:26:00.007Z

My own animation students are presently applying the finishing touches to their films. Once again I marvel at the difference music makes to a work. Had I not been whisked away by friends I had intended to feature three shorts that make best use of their musical support. Those responsible for the sound on Jae Hee Jung's atmospheric 3D piece, Little Dark Corners (64mb), Matthew Thomas and Leonardo Barragon, have done a stunning job. We move upwards from the cellar to enter the room where the old lady (pig?) and baby pigs seem frozen in a time warp watching a flickering television set, the music and gently wafting seeds making for a spell-binding few minutes. A room full of curiosity, mystery, strange objects at once familiar and not so. And then the Korean director, furthering her studies at the estimable Vancouver Film School, lets us into her little dark secrets. Or certainly the mysteries of how a confidently crafted, haunting film has been fashioned. Jae Hee's earlier drawn animation, Handmade, has a more social message as the woman beavers away in a small factory - sweatshop is a better term - despite injury and pregnancy. There is effective use of colour to add impact to an essentially monochrome and beautifully drawn piece. The sound engineering by the director herself and Eric Oyun Kwon works here too. The director casts a striking presence as a visit to her website will testify. Much much more from VFS and some more musically uplifting works to come.

Tatiana & Marina Moshkova "The Laughterfall" & "In Scale" (2007)

2010-02-25T16:47:00.005Z

Unusually for the Animation Blog I shall introduce the animators before the animation. Those in question are the subject of a clever live action piece by Hungary’s Peter Vadocz, Twins. Tatiana and Marina Moshkova are featured side by side, almost as one but not quite. Tatiana (on the right) made The Laughterfall in 2007, their first year at St Petersburg State University. A conventionally drawn animation about snowmen, I could have used it at Christmas though we’ve had plenty of the white stuff lately and there is a melting giant in my front garden. My family’s sad snowman fades away alone but Tatiana has four of the creatures competing against each other in an ultimately doomed competition given a certain bright individual in the skies above. I wonder how much was intentional in theme as, despite grandiose plans, the snowmen suffer the fate of all mortals. 2007 was a good year, with sister Marina making In Scale, a precisely drawn piece indeed. Created in a deceptively simple manner, it features an indomitable mother bird whose dedication to maintaining nest, egg and hatchling knows no bounds, has no mercy and wreaks havoc all around her. One has to maintain a sense of proportion but does any mother about her child? Graduating in 2009, Marina was named best student of the year. I aim to take a further look at both women’s later work.

Elizaveta Skvortsova "Lullabies of the World" (2006 ....)

2010-02-24T19:18:00.006Z

Continuing my exploration of the work of Russian director Elizaveta Skvortsova today’s post concerns Lullabies of the World, a series of short films in which a folk song from a country is animated in the style suggested by the culture, albeit all share a stylised approach aimed, primarily though not exclusively, at children. Chukchi Lullaby provides a solution to a problem afflicting parents everywhere: how to quiet a screaming child. Commencing with a polar bear making its steady way over the ice, the unborn baby evident in the womb, we leave the blue of the Siberian for the interior of their hide covered tepee, any tranquillity disturbed by the bawling infant. Parents don masks, dance and sing to quell the infant. African Lullaby explains how in that continent, there is no need for such antics for the most attractive flies I have ever seen induce sleep in all the people and wild animals. Turkish Lullaby employs vivid colours in its explanation of the diet of calves and the origin of babies. If being found under a gooseberry bush is considered bizarre, discovering the new born babe in a cabbage is much more rational as it is less prickly for delicate skin. The three named lullabies are offered in a random selection. All animations in the series share a considerable beauty, the visual elements arranged to the music with an extraordinary degree of skill and such a vibrant sense of colour. They generally end with parents cuddling child and can be found readily enough on YouTube, emanating from the above links. Because I wish to support such work I have attempted to discover a link to the DVD series from the studio, Metronome Films. I shall update if and when.

Emily Howells & Anne Wilkins "A Film About Poo" (2009) & "The Psychiatrist" (2007)

2010-02-23T20:42:00.006Z

A veritable cornucopia of films today and such subjects. Let's commence with A Film About Poo. They have competitions for anything these days and Emily Howells & Anne Wilkins gained second place in the animated films section of 2009's Golden Poo Award. From making pies to filling in crossword rhyming matches for "word", the piece speeds along with a cheery mixture of well drawn images and stop motion animation. Very catching it all is too, and would be if you failed to wash your hands after visiting the loo, the laudable point of the campaign. The girls' work was selected in first place by the jury. It was however reduced to second place by the cinema audience who voted for Dancing In The Loo by Delphine Mandin, obviously preferring the pulsating beat, kids' animals and simple animation to the more complex rival - I'm with the jury but we live in a democracy and there is a charm in the winning entry. No competition this time and Emily's solo piece, The Psychiatrist, gains first place in my own competition for choosing the great Roger McGough whose wit is used to great effect here, the voice also being that of Liverpool's bard. Wearing a toucan on/in his head, naturally, cheery Roger is asked by cheery Neil whether or not he's afraid. Of course he is. Cue bout of introspection in the psychiatrist's chair. Roger's afraid of anything and everything, the stream of fears bursting out like the dam's collapsed, except the fears are more surreal: "I'm afraid of discovering a dead hand in my overcoat pocket... I'm afraid of being left under the stairs after the party like an umbrella full of sick..." The movement from banter to therapy is managed wonderfully as we zoom into eyes of man and toucan. Asking the patient whether or not he ever imagines being anything or anybody launches a further string of impossible images. "Is there anything wrong with me do you think?" Nonsense old boy. An assured act from performer and director.

Jerry van de Beek & Betsy De Fries "Journey" (CALU - 2010)

2010-02-22T20:52:00.004Z

Jerry van de Beek and Betsy De Fries comprise the small but perfectly formed Little Fluffy Clouds, a California based company that from what I can make out seems to turn its adroit hand to whatever project is put its way. Take Journey (25mb), a 30 second ad for the University of California, Pennsylvania. Watch how the curved blue line moves outwards towards a rowing boat before we alight at the university campus, gradually being populated by students, the buildings and trees such warm colours, to be whisked upwards, above the entire university, a community set inside a blue sea. Pastoral and enticing, the freshness of it all makes one want to start again. A watercolour mix of 2D and 3D, using Maya and After Effects, college life as one might wish it to be. Parents would certainly. Clean living. And a very cool ad. There's more work on their website, for some very prestigious clients, as indeed is CALU. I want to go there.

Raul Szkraba "Yo Belerofonte" (2007)

2010-02-21T19:41:00.008Z

One of the most intriguing videos sent to me in the past weeks has been that of Raul Szkraba, an animator from North Patagonia, Argentina whose experimentation in animation is unlike anything I have ever come across. Sadly none of his full works is available on-line. However in 2007 he adapted images from his Yo Belerofonte to a wonderful track by Nina Simone, I Get Along Without You Very Well and it is this that I thought might serve as a good introduction to his work. Here one gets a flavour of his style, the sketches, abstract use of colour, cut-outs. In his other work one is as likely to see live documentary footage and always there is the manipulation of sound, voices and occasional cacophony. Add to this his reference to myth and legend. Yo Belerofonte is an adaptation of the story of Bellerophon slaying the Chimera. Raul uses just the right imagery to set off the song. Something about the reclining woman blowing the leaf into the air sums up the mood magically. Raul's major work, the 42 minute Saturnales (two minute trailer) transposes elements of the story of Promethesus into a modern setting. If you enjoy challenging material take a look. In the DVD I have there are English subtitles but the essence of the piece is here.

Anton Octavian "My Friend Is A Cloud" (2009)

2010-02-20T09:37:00.003Z

I certainly do not understand all the animated shorts I write about. I misunderstand as much as I understand. I seemingly misunderstood My Friend Is A Cloud from Romanian director Anton Octavian. This is what I thought at first....... High above a floating city an aeroplane drops a parcel for a young musician. It contains a puppy who becomes a companion. In a city devoid of humans the pianist performs for an auditorium of robots. Time passes and the boy meets a fellow human being allowing him to parcel up his past and move on. The film is a statement of loneliness and the need for relationships. Well that's what I thought. I was assisted in this view by the melancholic, haunting music of Brandon Visel, the prevalence of surveillance cameras in a city and a definite coldness of atmosphere. I was not sure though and sought the explanation of Anton himself. "My Friend Is A Cloud is a film about childhood, dreams and music. I built the script of this film from my own experiences. I say this because I have been drawing since I was 4 years and am still drawing. In My friend Is A Cloud the little boy dreams, imagines the future that he would like to have in the future. Dreams that will become a famous pianist among robots on an floating island created in his imagination. The film is divided into 3 phases. The first stage is where he discovers music and friendship, the second is the passage of time where the little boy is more mature, more responsible, it becomes more serious and sad. And finally the third stage is that of awakening from the dream, waking up to reality. In this film I wanted to use the concept that... what we do when we are young, those things will influence our future." Made with Anime Studio and Photoshop, the atmospheric piece is clearly drawn, has delicious colouring and a textured finish. And, yes, of course, I can see how the explanation fits. The boy was waving to himself. But, you know, somehow it still seems first and foremost to be about friendship and loneliness. I misunderstood all of Shakespeare's plays or that's what my students used to tell me when I taught English Literature. They were wrong.

Moo-hyun Jang "Alarm" (2009)

2010-02-19T12:41:00.002Z

Alarm is a remarkable piece of work. With a precision of imagery that is, well ... remarkable, director Moo-hyun Jang mounts a ferocious attack on that most fiendish of torture devices, the alarm clock. Guy sets his alarms (sound system, mobile phone, straight-forward, bog standard alarm clock) for 7.00am. Work. It is possible to waive the first call, of course, a submergence under the quilt or cushion works after a fashion but modern devices have snooze alarms, spawn of the devil. And these alarm clocks in the apartment are irrepressible. The humorous short is a masterly use of CG technology, the sheer detail of the objects in the apartment taking one's breath away. Surely that is real, as in actual, material, metal, plastic, chrome.... Only the central character himself is artificial, though possessing a naturalistic movement - some of it very funny - but with the skin texture of a child's plastic doll. This is a deliberate and effective style choice. Our guy looks most stylish with gloriously spiked 3D hair that fairly pulses with life. Truly. His simple facial features are capable of great expression, though the range here moves from yawning to unadulterated rage at the alarms. I do get complaints that I feature too little 3D. I heeded the alarm. Moo-hyun's website has a huge HQ download plus lots of extras.

Elizaveta Skvortsova "Wait, Be So Kind" (2002)

2010-02-18T20:41:00.000Z

This is the first of three posts concerning the Russian director, Elizaveta Skvortsova. I'll commence with her thesis film of 2002, Wait, Be So Kind. The story is an age old one of a struggle with Death, personified here as a young woman whose dark presence is somewhat challenged by a lively girl cast down to Death's kingdom. The girl has been dispatched by her father, the king, angry at a defeat in battle and by the sight of his daughter embracing her lover. The spirited girl proceeds to argue with Death in order that she return to life if only for a minute. "Do you want me to tell you how beautiful it is to be alive?" Death relents - for one night only. Elizaveta frames the narrative as a slide projection show, as a girl (looking exactly like Death) presents a late night story, a scary one, using old fashioned equipment, complete with mechanical whirring sound. The music is at once melodic and repetitive, a wistful carousel ride, whilst the cut-out style has a simplicity about it that is both appealing and apt, particularly as emblems of life, in all their colour, are wheeled on towards the close. Viewed from the perspective of a child, one fleshes the details out oneself. Death is a lonely figure, strangely discomforted in the presence of Life. Elizaveta attended the State Institute of Filmmaking (VGIK). She was 24 when she made this most beautifully designed short. And yes, life is beautiful.

David Clayton & Andrew Silke "Cane Toad: What Happened to Baz?" (2002)

2010-02-17T13:53:00.007Z

In a rich tradition of Australian cultural events, inspired doubtless by that great epitome of a great country, Cultural Attaché Sir Les Patterson, Daz (Dazza to his mates) pauses awhile from the hectic circuit of academic engagements to make a heartfelt plea for the return of his best mate Baz, "because, pickle me grandma, the silly old bugger has gone bloody missing." Cane Toad: What Happened to Baz? has the guy's conjectures and hypotheses on the whereabouts of the elusive toad. Daz has a fertile imagination, drank too much of the bottled nectar and been watching too many horror films. Cane toads have a persecuted life and every gory moment is explored in glorious detail in a hilarious film that I first saw on the internet years ago and just stumbled on via YouTube. David Clayton and Andrew Silke hit a funny bone or two, though lovers of toads may not agree. The mobile features of the toads make for glorious animation. Paul Davies does the voice. Every fear of Daz is justified, by the way, though he does not go far enough.

Borivoj Dovnikovic "Learning To Walk" (1978)

2010-02-15T09:32:00.003Z

Unless one is a Tissa David, the most difficult task for budding (or seasoned) animators is to draw a figure that walks in a natural fashion. There's always someone to help but unless you can visualise the cycle your guy's got a wooden leg. Learning To Walk, Borivoj Dovnikovic's 1978 short, takes one young fellow, striding along with an occasional skip of sheer joy, and subjects him to expert scrutiny. Before one can say Jumping Jackrabbit, the little chap has sprouted wooden legs, arms and trunk. There's a lesson here. An amusing little piece from one of the originators of the Zagreb School of Animation and a faltering step towards placating one of my most learned correspondents who reminds me of a deficiency in my coverage here. (Would there were only one.) So then, director, cartoonist and book illustrator "Bordo" has 50 years experience in the business and is a founder of Zagreb's great animated film festival. Much more about him and Yugoslavian animation to come when I get into my stride.

Jan Balej "Džin" ( "One Night in the City" 2007)

2010-02-14T05:21:00.001Z

Džin should be be viewed as a short in its own right though is in fact the final ten minute segment of Czech director Jan Balej's feature length puppet animation, One Night in the City. Staged in a dimly lit set and featuring two comically grotesque drunks, the tale is a variation of a story that may just be familiar. The pair release a genie from a beer bottle and are granted a wishlist nothing short of that available to a lottery winner, save this is instant. So, what should drunks wish for? Obvious really. Drunks cast out from the bar require more drink and so, inevitably, they squander a resource from heaven. For this genie is no skinflint, he delivers what is required, and is not out to trick his new masters. Needs are met. What goes in has to exit and the genie provides the amenities. Then thoughts turn amorous and the pair are treated to a theme park ride through a bordello. Darker visions are explored in the other vignettes that comprise the original 78 minute film, generously funded to the tune of $700,000 by the Czech government, and one that took six years to make. Consequently, puppets, sets and accoutrements make for magical animation. Here, non-stop cigarette machine, ketchup, beer, fish, pastes and endless slices of sausage. The affable pair are in heaven indeed. As they head off into the dawn, skulls a little sore, one may be assured they've had a fabulous night out.

Plastic Horse "Strange Things" (Bias & River Nelson 2010)

2010-02-13T07:21:00.000Z

I guess any animation studio worth their fee would welcome a track as rich in urban criminality as Strange Things. Plastic Horse made the official video for rappers Bias & River Nelson. Now I have to confess this is not normally to my musical taste though I actually enjoyed the piece. How much of this was a consequence of the animation, how much the more musical interludes, I'm not so sure. Scratching his head, stirring the cream, the guy with the hood unleashes all sorts of urban anxieties, headache inducing murders, recorded on the mobile for posterity, discarded syringes and yes, close-ups of the morning's breakfast. Spare me that. The animators are not frighted to get up close and dirty to faces of nightmare or just faces absorbing the world's nightmares as best they can. Green goo spewed from mouths is not for the squeamish though the comic book gore comes and goes in cheerful fashion, as dictated by the lyrics, and I couldn't take the rounded men too seriously. Toby's bill comes to only $10, for breakfast, pudding and two coffees. That's strange. David Gilbert and Maxim Lucas are talented, prolific and highly varied in their style.

Eugene Fedorenko "Every Child" (1979)

2010-02-12T16:25:00.008Z

Every Child directed by Eugene Fedorenko was the 1979 Academy Award winner, Canada’s contribution to UNESCO’s International Year of the Child. Every child has a right to a nationality and a name. The young infant featured in the six minute clip finds herself passed rapidly from house to house as for various reasons she is deemed superfluous. She is unable to supplant the family dog, gets in the way of business, stands between husband and wife, or is simply one too many. Abandoned completely she does however find a home in the most unlikely of communities. Sparingly drawn throughout with delicate colouring, Every Child has some interesting features notably the mimed sounds from Les Mimes Electriques. Indeed I guess they are the guys in the live action footage that binds the animated section together, two men in a recording studio miming the sounds as a grinning Sophie Cowling sits on a knee. There is also a mini opera as wife pleads with unrelenting husband to retain the child. Light, amusing, engaging, the short demonstrates how sledge hammers need not be used to hammer home a point. The link is to the NFB though a YouTube version is available. Eugene made the excellent Village of Idiots in 1999. Sadly there is no version freely available on the web.

Nick Park "A Matter of Loaf and Death" (2009)

2010-02-11T21:01:00.005Z

Academy Award winners already, Wallace and Gromit are British institutions, and their latest, made for television film, A Matter of Loaf and Death, has been nominated for this year’s awards. Indeed every film featuring them has been at least nominated. When A Grand Day Out failed to win the award it was director Nick Park’s other film, Creature Comforts, that deprived the pair of the honour. Therefore their latest adventure has something to live up to. Dog and master are running a bakery company, Top Bun, powered in the Heath Robinson mode we have grown to love. Wallace though is infatuated with Piella Bakewell, star of a series of loaf centred television commercials, and a lady intent on achieving the baker’s dozen, twelve bakery men having recently disappeared in mysterious circumstances. The film is the first outing for our heroes since the glorious The Curse of the Were-Rabbit in 2006. The most watched programme on television in the UK this Christmas, plus the highest audience in playback mode on the corporation’s iPlayer, the new half hour short is a treat though lacking the budget of its predecessors and some of the striking set pieces a more generous funding would have allowed. It also is darker in tone than its predecessors. I saw the film at Christmas and it is unavailable on-line. However there is a 20 minute making of version on YouTube, How They Donut. One of my secret pleasures in life is to listen to Peter Sallis speak and I should be delighted if that were to be after a successful awards ceremony. Those plasticine figures are magical in my eyes but maybe, just maybe, the Oscar will go to a film a little different this year. That suggests to me Logorama. (I have already covered Fabrice O. Joubert’s French Roast, a beautifully crafted comic drama and very real contender if the judges reward subtlety.)

Nicky Phelan "Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty" (2008)

2010-02-08T15:39:00.001Z

Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty is the third of the Oscar nominated shorts for this year's award, a reworking of one of Grimm's fairy tales. Nicky Phelan's 2008 film's has the grim granny terrifying her grandchild with a fairy story in which the old lady's identification with the action dominates the tale. Kathleen O'Rourke wrote the script and offers a demented voice for O'Grimm who wakes the child up to tell the story of the ugly old fairy not invited to the christening. The production team hail primarily from Ireland's Ballyfermot College in Dublin and I should love to see the Irish triumph at the Oscars. I also am a fan of Kathleen's stand-up work as a comedian. But I can't see this as the winner. The movie is based on Kathleen's stage character, a blistering performance that is as conducive to sleep as slaughtering Duncan in his castle. It is divided into two concurrent parts, 3D work for the bedroom with little girl cowering under the sheets, close-up face of bedtime story reader. Then the hand drawn, pink world of the fairy story, a style I fail to warm to, I'm afraid, being rather flat by comparison. This is not to say the movie is not good, it is just not Oscar good. A full version is also available from the studio website.

Javier Recio Gracia "The Lady and the Reaper" (2009)

2010-02-07T18:49:00.000Z

This year's selection for the Academy Award for Animated Short Film is a much stronger one than last year. Spanish director Javier Recio Gracia has a definite contender in The Lady and the Reaper. It is a stylishly staged short in which an old woman welcomes the arrival of the grim reaper to take her from a lonely farm where a photograph of her departed husband is all she has for company. The arrival of the hooded guy with the scythe does not go entirely as planned, however, due to the infernal intervention of supremely handsome, confident, famous, worshipped surgeon surrounded by a besotted harem of nurses. The diabolical struggle between surgeon and reaper, along with an intervention from the lady herself, forms the basis of a very funny chase movie. The imaginative action, often coloured in flamboyant fashion, has a comic timing that is always assured and sustained throughout its seven minutes. (Indeed there is not a dead moment throughout - odd given its theme.) A most sophisticated movie all round, aided by a marvellous choice of accompanying music, including original work from Sergio de la Puente. I would not be displeased were it to top the poll. Whether it is sufficiently pioneering is a question for the judges. The link is to a HQ version, befitting a high quality film. And, by the way, if Logorama has a vaunted theme as I have read, it could be argued Javier's movie is a triumphant promo for voluntary euthanasia.

Francois Alaux, Herve de Crecy, Ludovic Houplain (H5) "Logorama" (2009)

2010-02-06T13:36:00.009Z

From a domestic satire yesterday to today's foray into this year's Oscar nominated films, and a spectacular satire it is too, much more explicit in its language, targeting popular culture and Hollywood violence. Or is it revelling in it all? Logorama might just be my favourite short of those selected though I shall be writing about each one in turn. Using some 2000 logos from the world's finest companies, the directors, Francois Alaux, Herve de Crecy and Ludovic Houplain - collectively H5 - have created a seventeen minute blockbuster of a movie set in Los Angeles in which two Michelin Men cops combat a maniac killer dressed as a clown (Ronald McDonald), the savagery and chaos acting as a precurser for even more pervasive devastation as an earthquake adds to the fun. For fun it is. Michelin Man enters KFC verbalising the mantra "small salad, glass of water" to emerge immediately prior to the car chase laden with French Fries and fizzy drink, or the Green Giant threatening to show his heiney to the brats who have just shown there's to the pussy in the cage that bears so much more than a mere striking resemblance to a certain film company trademark. The chase is great fun, the villain apologises for the killing spree, there's corpses everywhere whilst the city looks like Legoland gone ape. When the eruption takes place the world is awash with oil, as ever perhaps though not as in (or over) your face as here. An irreverent pastiche of consumer society with lots of subtle and not so subtle play on brands, advertising and the denizens of that world - the Haribo Kid, Bob's Big Boy and Mr. Pringle. Ingenius product placement then, furious tempo, sheer unrelenting action and laughter in a startlingly original, for all it is unoriginal, world of CGI. Should the link go down, the movie is currently on YouTube in two sections - Logorama and (part 2).