A bittersweet childhood memory, beautifully recalled by German animator Hendrik Rost:

A beautiful example of pure visual storytelling. Gobelins students Chloé Nicolay, Manddy Wyckens, Anthony Lejeune, Gaspard Sumeireand Léa Justum animated this short during their summer internship at Cube Creative in Paris.

If you are planning to buy the two sets of UPA cartoons that Jerry posted about, you would do well to also pick up the forthcoming history of the UPA studio, When Magoo Flew: The Rise and Fall of Animation Studio UPA by Adam Abraham. As far as I know, the book and the DVDs weren’t planned together, but the stars are aligned, and one of the most important yet neglected animation studios of all time is ripe for rediscovery in 2012.

I’ve already read Adam’s book and I’m happy to report that he gets it absolutely right. The research is impeccable, the writing solid, the story fascinating. Though the book includes over 70 illustrations, it’s more narrative history than coffeetable art book, but that’s hardly an issue anymore thanks to the two companion DVD sets that contain UPA’s entire theatrical short output. The 324-page When Magoo Flew will be released by Wesleyan University Press next March. Place your pre-order on Amazon for a mere $20.

Not qualifying for an Academy Award is this new Scrat short from Blue Sky. Directed by Steve Martino and Michael Thurmeier, it’s more of an elongated trailer (for the next Ice Age sequel next summer). I predict this will be attached to the forthcoming Alivn and the Chipmunks sequel (Chipwrecked) and may be better than the main feature.

Here’s the list of qualified shorts, screened this past weekend for members of the Short Films and Feature Animation Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, with links to all the films were you can find additional info, see the trailer or watch the whole film itself.

Members of the Short Film and Feature Animation branch will soon vote, creating a shortlist of ten films from this 45. A second round of voting, also restricted to members of the Short Films and Feature Animation branches, will narrow it down to the five nominees for Best Animated Short Film Oscar. The final vote, which determines the winner, is open to all Academy members provided that they have watched every nominated short. It’s a wide open field this year with a variety of techniques and themes; four major studio shorts (from Pixar, Warners, Sony, Disney) up against some of the best talents from around the world, along with student films and independent fare. Can’t wait to see who makes it to the shortlist. Good luck to all!

A Morning Stroll by Grant Orchard (Studio AKA)
Read Cartoon Brew’s post about A Morning Stroll.

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A Shadow of Blue by Carlos Lascano

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Birdboy by Alberto Vasquez (Abrikim Studio)

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Chopin’s Drawings by Dorota Kobiela (BreakThru Films) Poland
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The Academy is considering about 45 films for this years Best Animated Short. We don’t have the list of what qualified, but here are trailers from three intriguing films we know were submitted:

A Morning Stroll by Grant Orchard (Studio AKA)

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Birdboy by Alberto Vazquez

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The Gloaming by NoBrain

For the past year Jesus Orellana’s epic sci-fi short Rosa has been winning awards at festivals and attracting attention in Hollywood (it’s already in development to be a live-action feature). The short was created by Barcelona-based Orellana with “no budget” and took a twelve months to produce. What’s all the fuss about? It’s now online:

While we await their CG Arthur Christmas and their clay-mated Pirates feature, Aardman tempts us with this superbly crafted short from director Peter Peake. Produced by Aardman’s commercials division during downtime between jobs; here’s sneak peek of the designs and a brief interview with Peake at 3D Artist Online.

Hand-drawn goodness by Rob Stevenhagen created for by Steffen Schaeffler’s The Emperor’s New Clothes. Where can we see the rest of the animation? Montreal-based Pascal Blais Studio produced the film. (The video was posted on their Vimeo account, but they didn’t produce it. See below for details.)

UPDATE: The animator of the piece, Rob Stevenhagen, writes: “The film is called Screen Test (and is a pilot for a feature film called The Emperor’s New Clothes). Screen Test is directed by Steffen Schaeffler, animated by me, and produced by Berlin based Ideal Standard Film (not Pascal Blais). See IMDB for credits.

(Thanks, Boris Hiestand)

UPDATE: MARCH 15, 2012: Bla Bla won the SXSW Interactive Award.

Is it a film or a game? Interactivity and non-linear storytelling have been more the realm of gaming than short filmmaking, but the two fields are slowly merging. In the coming years, interactivity promises to become a valuable tool in the short filmmaker’s arsenal. Bla Bla created for the NFB by Montreal director Vincent Morisset is one of the more ambitious and successful interactive film experiments I’ve seen. The press release below contains lots of details about what it’s all about. But first, be sure to spend some time exploring the film itself by going HERE.

Vincent Morisset’s BLA BLA is an interactive tale that explores the fundamental principles of human communication. The viewer makes the story possible: without him or her, the characters remain inert, waiting for the next interaction. The spectator clicks, plays and searches through the simple, uncluttered scenes, truly driving the experience.

Each of the six chapters in the story depicts a different aspect of communication: learning a language, making small talk, expressing emotions, etc. Rich in opportunities for discovery, BLA BLA illustrates these concepts through endearing yet perplexing characters. The figures were designed by Caroline Robert using a variety of techniques, both traditional and hi-tech.

“BLA BLA uses xerography, drawing on paper, ActionScript-generated animations, puppet stop-motion combined with real-time 3D mapping, etc.,” Morisset explains. “I am inspired by projects that feel free aesthetically. I wanted BLA BLA to feel hand-made, imperfect, fragile, so we forget about the technology.”

The music as well as the characters’ speech were fragmented into tiny clips and then scored through programming. Composer Philippe Lambert designed a progressive soundscape that uses “controlled randomness.” Morisset relied on the skills of software developer Édouard Lanctôt-Benoît for the programming of BLA BLA.

The work stands apart in its emphasis on achieving an emotional response in the viewer/actor. “I wanted to create moods and generate emotions through an interactive piece,” Morriset says. “It’s quite hard to do dramatic crescendos on a website… I thought it would be an interesting challenge.”

As part of the creative process for BLA BLA, Morisset extensively researched interactive narrative. Seeking a filmmaking language specific to the online realm, he defined a new grammar of non-linear editing. Through the very format of the work, he therefore questions the challenges of communication and of telling a story in which the spectator is a participant: “The project in itself explores the grammar of a new medium,” he says.

BLA BLA thus offers a new vision of communication in the wider sense, of how our natural behaviours and interactions with others play out in the world. “The relation between the user and the film is part of the message,” Morriset explains. “We wrote and created it based on universal stuff: the social nature of humans, our fear of the unknown, the desire for appropriation and freedom, and paradoxically the love of being taken by the hand.”

Morisset has been exploring the narrative potential of interactive art for twelve years now. His pioneering work in the field has included several collaborations with the group Arcade Fire, including “be oNline B”, widely considered the first interactive music video, and MIROIR NOIR, a documentary portrait of the band. With the support of the NFB, he now offers us BLA BLA, a one-of-a-kind experience that further refines his hallmark: re-imagining “once upon a time” for the digital age.

CREDITS
Direction, Animation and Compositing
Vincent Morisset

Sound, Music and Voice
Philippe Lambert

Programming and Technology
Édouard Lanctôt-Benoit

Visual Design and Animation
Caroline Robert

Puppet Armature Design
Jean-François Lévesque

Rotoscopy
Vincent Lambert

Photography
Minelly Kamemura

Additional Prototype Programming
Mathieu Campagna

Prototype 3D Modelling and Animation
Joshua Sherrett
Jonathan Fleming-Bock

(Thanks, J. J. Sedelmaier)

Let’s celebrate Halloween with the creepiest Disney short ever made: Jack Kinney’s Duck Pimples. It’s quite unlike any of Kinney’s Goofy shorts from the same period, not to mention unlike any short ever produced at Disney. The weirdness may be attributed to the writing team of Dick Shaw and weirdo-genius Virgil Partch, who were parodying radio crime/noir dramas, but veered off into some wildly surreal territory. It’s not exactly a great cartoon, but it’s entertaining, which I can’t say for most other Disney shorts. The animation is top-drawer work, and the human character designs are big fun. The effect of Donald’s hallucinatory dream is enhanced by the backgrounds that abruptly change each time a new character appears in the film.

The biggest mystery in this whodunnit is who’s responsible for the animation of Pauline, which is one of the finest pieces of cartoony female animation this side of Preston Blair. Milt Kahl is the most likely candidate if we look at the credits, but Marc Davis and Fred Moore have both been credited as working on the cartoon too (see Graham Webb’s Animated Film Encyclopedia). Disney didn’t use a strict unit system in the 1940s like other studios; usually whichever animators had downtime would work on a short, so it’s conceivable that Kahl, Moore and Davis all contributed to Pauline’s animation. Now that’s a scary amount of talent!

Jens Blank’s imaginative new film Don’t Swim After Lunch was created for a traveling art exhibition that started in London and went on to Shanghai and Beijing. Says Blank:

“It’s my take on daydreaming and changing everyday environments into something exciting. It was done over the stretch of 6 weeks grinding away in my room. Live action, Maya, AE, and pfTrack. You can find info on crew, concept art, behind the scenes on my webpage.“

CREDITS
Direction & Design – Jens Blank
Cinematography – David Liddell
Sound Design – Jussi Honka
Music – David Pringle
Additional animation – Bence Varga & Balogh Zsolt