The Animation Show!

I tried to sit down and write some great 3-5 page essay about what animated shorts I really enjoyed but it just wasn't happening. So I'll try just writing how I feel about the films without over thinking it and see what comes out. BTW, in my world Friday ends when the sun comes up on Saturday so I'm sorry that this is getting in at the wee hours of Saturday but I'm running on weekend time.

First, if I made Pan With Us, I could die happy. If I could pinpoint the type of animations that I want to make, that would be it. I thought that the interpretation of the poem was fantastic and beautifully done. I like the fact that David Russo took a concept like stop motion and changed it up just by bringing it outside is wonderful. I also like the use of different mediums. My background in art is in painting and ceramics (and sculpture) and I found the use of both techniques to make an animation incredible to watch. The use of painted glass to create shadows on the sidewalk was interesting to me and I wondered if you would be able to do it in color; if you could get the paint thin enough to get color on the sidewalk? I don't know. It's defiantly something to experiment with.

I could go on and on about what I liked about this film, but that wasn't really my assignment was it? So onto the link between concept and technique: Russo uses a poem by Robert Frost as his narration. I must say that the first time that I watched it, I didn't really listen to the words because I was basically hypnotized by the images. But even though the words didn't register, I thought that the poem complemented the images. There seemed to be a rhythm to the whole piece and it is really hammered home with the use of the poem. The combination of the editing and the cadence of the poem were probably what sent me in a trance.

It is important that the film is about the Greek god Pan and Russo makes it a point to tell us that Pan is where the word panic comes from. If you are watching the main animated image, the film seems very fluid and smooth, but outside the smaller image, all this shit is going on. It's chaotic. It's like the world around the image hit the panic button and the image just moves through the middle of it without caring what the hell is going on (my mother would probably say that I am the series of images in the center of the chaos).

Second on my list was Aria. This one was another stop motion (I got one more before I sign off). I was amazed at how fluid the movements of the doll were especially the hair (what the hell is up with the hair? It's crazy!). Pjotr Sapegin started with the idea of a puppet stripping itself all the way down to its skeleton. From there he decided to go with a story about suicide (as opposed to a striptease). By using Madame Butterfly, Sapegin already has a tragic story, but seeing the doll rip itself apart and then unscrew itself is very heartbreaking to watch. Even the story Sapegin tells in the booklet that comes with the DVD set about the only thing left being a couple of screws in a box is upsetting. When the doll killed herself, she did it for real. That’s sad! The use of dolls really helps bring the story to life, a lot like the acting in an opera. I always get frustrated with people who complain about not knowing what is going on in an opera because, a lot of the time, the songs are in a foreign language. PAY ATTENTION PEOPLE!! Most of life's communication is nonverbal anyway!

Sooooo....Last in my stop motion obsession is Fireworks by Pes. There are 3 very important things to take into consideration when watching this. 1. Candy Corn does indeed look like fire. 2. Candy is delicious. That is a FACT! 3. Peeps are awesome and their heads coming of are even more awesome!

Moving away from Stop motion, the other kind of animation that really stuck out to me was more cel type animation. My issue with cel animation is that it is that we grow up with it so in order for me to really enjoy it, I have to have a great story that I can attach myself to. I'm usually not blown away with the technique as much as I am for stop motion or claymation. That being said, I thought that Hello and Don Hertzfeldt's stuff were great and unique in their art and for opposing reasons.

Hello has a great story that is relatable. Jonathan Nix uses unique characters to convey his message of love and communication. As much as I liked the technique of Pan With Us, that is how much I enjoyed the concept of Hello. The story was really simple and has been done before (but almost everything has) but I thought the characters served the story well. I thought that the way it was drawn was great as well. It was very detailed and the "lighting" was great. I don't know if you would refer to it as "lighting" since it is just the way that it is drawn, but I thought it was nice that it wasn't very bright. It created a nice mood.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Hertzfeldt's stuff is bright and the details are very minimal. A majority of it is just black line on white paper. The minimalism of it plays nicely with the comedy of his work. If there were too much going on then it wouldn't be as funny. It would seem like it were reaching for the joke. It doesn't take too much to be funny. If you try too hard, your audience misses whatever is supposed to be the punch line. Plus, the when something is added that doesn't fit in with the black and white imagery, it makes it that much more funny, like a green sucker, or ink dripping from a characters head. The best one, I have to say, was Intermission in the 3rd Dimension. "It's like I can touch you." Great Stuff! It's is interesting how he incorporates color and texture as well as certain objects in the film. Even when it is just the two characters talking, you can still see the texture in the white paper change. It makes something that seems simple look more complex.