A blog developing a corpus of short films, originally in conjunction with Professor Jeffrey Middents' course Literature 346/646, "Short Films," at American University during Summer 2006, Fall 2008 and Fall 2011.
Here are the 2012 nominees for the short film Academy Awards. We will attempt to provide reviews for them this year as they become available for viewing:
This music video is an excellent one for potpourri week, I think, because it so effectively blends multiple themes from this class. In a cover of Heartless, originally by Kanye West, this music video provides a glimpse into the life of a young boy in class (algebra, from the look of his notebook) who does not appear very pleased with the course of his love life, particularly as it pertains to one brunette student who looks way too old for him.
The reason I selected this video, besides being such an eclectic blend of animation, online-based media and music videos, is the way animation itself is used. The story line depicted in the animation contains one of the boys' drawings, a little anatomically-accurate heart, trudging along having terrible thing after terrible thing happen to him. I love the effect of what is essentially a short film within a short film, illustrating the sort of corny cliches that we would never accept if they were in live action. If, for instance, the boy were to walk under a cloud and have it rain only on him, we as the audience might be inclined to yell at the screen "OKAY, we get it, he's sad!" However, by using a child's doodles, it seems only fitting.
This also allows for other things that would be difficult on film, such as the 2 cameos by Kanye West where he is shown wearing those ridiculous glasses and bobbing his head, which add to the overall entertainment value of the film. They also, (although perhaps this just reflects how much I am the daughter of an English professor who never let me watch Barney because he plagiarized people's songs), seem to use those cameos as further acknowledgement of the songs' original artist. I appreciated the gesture, whether it was actually meant that way or not.
Ultimately, it's impressive that the secondary character line (the heart) is integrated it so fully that it never strikes a viewer as odd. I think it's important to note that whether for practical reasons, optimal entertainment value, the ability to provide animated in-text citations or just to provide variation and visual interest, the use of a short within a short is just plain cool.
I had been planning on talking about Pixar's Geri's Game when this animated short by former Pixar animator Rodrigo Blaas was linked to me. I watched this film and was absolutely blown away. I do want to say that you must watch the film before reading the rest of this entry as it is not a film you want to be spoiled for.
The concept of this film is a rather simple one. A young girl, Alma, is walking through the snow-covered streets of a town when she sees a doll that resembles her in the window of a shop. The door opens on its own and she goes in, her doll seeming to disappear and reappear until she finds it on a shelf. When she touches it, there is a flash of images and suddenly the only sound is her breathing and the view now from the doll's eyes, looking around frantically. Alma has become her doll. The end of the film is another doll slowly coming up in the frame of the window, showing the next victim.
When a friend initially linked this to me, she mentioned it was creepy but I could have never predicted this. This film flows nicely but is entirely incongruous within itself, leaving its ending entirely in the dark and surprising for the ending. It's one of the most satisfying endings I have seen in a film, short or feature-length, because I didn't seen it coming and it was appropriately terrifying in its simplicity and lack of explanation. The start of the film seems humble and charming with its airy, pleasant score to the sight of a young girl walking in the snow. There is nothing ominous at its beginning which gives the audience a false sense of security which, in turn, is what makes the subsequent scenes in the store so much more haunting.
For the animation itself, it is soft in its line and Blaas' past with Pixar is extremely evident. It's very charming in its fantasy-like European setting and wins over the audience from the very start of the film. Blaas does an excellent job at setting up the most simplest of scenarios but still making the scene that comes next unknown to the audience, leaving them in the dark. When Alma becomes the doll, the audience is entirely unsuspecting of it. There was, clearly, something strange about the shop but the audience, like Alma, could not have predicted what.
This animated short is absolutely now one of my favorites and I think it was executed in a very mature and meticulous manner. I highly recommend it to anyone.
Mobilier Fidèle (The Automatic Moving Company) Directed by Emile Cohl, France, 1910, 4 minutes.
This film is about furniture that moves on its own, and therefore, makes moving into a new home quick and easy because everything knows where it needs to go--pictures go on the wall, mattresses go onto the already assembled bed frames and a broom and dust pan clean up broken dishes. There is arguably no story, but the furniture is given life with its ability to move and arrange itself. We can associate the film with a stage production--the actors and dancers know their places, props and scenes. We view a stage performance when the piano is getting up the stairs when boxes are coming down the stairs, and the boxes immediately go back up the stairs to allow the piano a place to move. I relate this scene to dancers bustling down stairs to get off stage but need to move in order for another actor to enter the next scene.
Emile Cohl is known as one of the first animators. When this film was released, it was a big deal because it used the new concept of stop-motion animation--moving inanimate objects slightly during each frame in order to give them the appearance of moving. This film is remarkable because moving the furniture up and down in place must have been heavy and taken a while. Also, as a new technique, the stop-motion is seamless. There are no unusual jerks in the movement of the furniture--the furniture does not start on the left side of the frame and then cut to the right side of the frame. Furthermore, this film can be argued as a test, not a short film, because it is lacking the narrator we often expect from short films. This film argues that story is not necessary and that testing a technique, in its own right, also creates a short. Or, because I can associate the film to real life, does that mean there is a story? It just may always be different depending on the viewer.
