Animated Thoughts: 2025 Academy Award Nominated Short Films

Well, the Academy Awards have come and gone. And I'm still rejoicing over the fact that Flow rightfully won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. It was well deserved. I'm not one of those anti-Hollywood studio types, but it always feels good to see a superior film get the recognition it deserves, especially when it's not a big-budget production backed by hundreds of millions of dollars.

As for the animated shorts, while I usually drive down to the Detroit Institute of Arts to see the shorts program at the Detroit Film Theater, this year was different. As my car has passed the 300,000 mile mark on the odometer, I'm trying to be a little more selective with my day trips--both to stretch out the lifespan of my car for as long as I can but also to shuffle the money saved into a new used car fund.

You can imagine my joy when I discovered that the animated shorts program was being shown by a local theater chain about a ten minute drive from my home (thank you Studio C). So, with popcorn and soda in hand, I settled in to watch this year's program. Felt a little wistful that I didn't get to spend the day soaking in the beautiful works of art at the DIA, but I was very appreciative that I had a good crowd at the theater for the screening. There were only nine of us, but once the lights dimmed, we all forgot about the outside world and were drawn in to a magical world of animation. There were no smartphones lighting up the theater, no one talking to each other, just us and the art of the moving image. Pure bliss.

Onto my thoughts from the screening.

Beautiful Men (directed by Nicolas Keppens)

Beautiful Men is a very thought provoking film. I've seen it three times now at different venues and each time I discover something new in the story, be it an enormous realization or a small nuance. From this third viewing, the plight of the three brothers finally left me with a moment of clarity. After the events of the story, Stephen and Koen want things to go back to the way they were. Whereas Bart is haunted by the irrevocable change in their relationship--his hair being a constant reminder of what was lost instead of a source of joy. If this short ever gets released on DVD, I'd definitely like to pick this one up for the collection--hopefully as part of something like Ron Diamond's Animation Show of Shows. Beautiful Men is a slow burn but tells a surprisingly deep story. Rating: A.

In the Shadow of the Cypress (Directed by Hossein Molayemi, Shirin Sohani)

This was a well executed, well animated film. Good animation quality, character design, cinematography, and color choices. Not much more to say. Decent film, but I just didn't find it memorable in the way that the other films were. I do think it's worth a second viewing. I'd like to go back, watch it again, and see if there's something there that I missed. Sometimes it's just not the right time in your life to connect with a film. Rating: B.

Magic Candies (Directed by Daisuke Nishio)

Not going to lie, I didn't like the character design. The boy looked ugly in an "uncanny valley" sort of way that made me cringe and look at other areas of the screen--which led to being able to really appreciate the lush backgrounds in this film. But I really liked the story as well as Dong-Dong's character growth arc as the lad learned, through the magic candies, what his impact on his little world really was. This was a story of growth and maturing and it was handled rather well. Rating: B+

Wander to Wonder (Directed by Nina Gantz)

Another film I've seen several times in different venues. This is the tragic tale of three doll-sized humans (faeries?) who are struggling with the loss of their caretaker--and the loss of the world as they knew it. This is a solid piece of stop-motion animation with an equally solid, very well executed story.--especially how they told the events leading up to the story's driving conflict using old VHS recordings as a flashback tool. It's well worth the time watching. Rating: A.

Yuck! (Directed by Loïc Espuche)

 
Yuck! was cute. It's another story about kids growing into maturity--this time where they are starting to make that shift from finding physical affection (kissing) between adults as something gross to one where, quoting the Princess Bride, "Someday, you may not mind so much." Like Magic Candies, Yuck! was a film where the character design really didn't do it for me, but the art design, color choices, and the animation were very competently executed with an engaging story and a heartwarming payoff. Rating: B+/A-

In the end, this was a pretty good selection. Personally, I was rooting for Beautiful Men or Wander to Wonder to take home the Oscar, but all the films in this year's line up are worth watching--and I hope you do, whether they're released on the net individually or as part of a festival program.

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Animated Thoughts: A surprising find in a surprising place

This past weekend, I flew to New Orleans for my brother-in-law's 60th birthday party--what we all were calling "John Con 2025" by the end of the weekend. Hadn't seen that side of the family for a while and John is a great guy, so when I got the invite, there really was no decision to make, just a little shuffling of cash from one account to another to pay for the plane ticket and hotel.

My sister, ever the planner, had a series of "group" events set up for everyone to celebrate John's birthday but there was also some free time available where we could wander New Orleans by ourselves and do a little exploring.

Fresh beignets

Well, true to form, she selected our first meetup at the Café du Monde on the north side of town. Not the one by the waterfront where I had been before, no, this was the one a five minute walk from the New Orleans Museum of Art. So after getting sugared up on beignets, it was time to get moving and walk off some of that breakfast. The pre-planned walking tour of the French Quarter wouldn't be until the early afternoon, so I had time to walk across the street to the New Orleans Museum of Art.

The first surprise was seeing a Claude Monet painting that I've never seen in person before. 'Houses' is a bit of a departure from the flowing pastels that I'm used to. But it's a welcome one as it still displays Monet's signature brushstrokes and stylization.

Houses on the Old Bridge at Vernon, c. 1883

Another exhibit I really enjoyed was their special exhibit on the history of glasswork. There were multiple examples of ceramics and glasswork all around the museum, but this exhibit was a more expansive history of glasswork from around the world with examples spanning a wide range of techniques and styles. If you're in the area, it's worth checking out. As I took the photos, my mind was going a mile-a-minute figuring out how I'd model them in 3d CGI.

"Tumble-up" cup and decanter, c.1860

Decanter, c.1880 - Uranium glass

Necklace with 19 minature Easter Eggs from
the workshop of Carl Fabergé

But the surprise of the visit was seeing a painting by artist Wayne Thiebaud.

Salmon Rose, 1966

On the placard, it stated "Disney animator", though my cursory research only revealed that he was an inbetweener for Disney during one summer before going on to producing commercial art, achieving a Masters degree in art history, and teaching at the University of California, Davis (among other accomplishments). [1]

Although I'm clearly biased here given the subject, I still think that it's the mark of a really good display that causes you to want to learn more about the artist, the art style or movement, or what influenced the artist when they were creating said artwork. Yes, I admit it, I'm one of those weirdos that you see in the museum, sitting down and looking at their smartphones while surrounded by priceless works of art. Well, more often than not, it's because I've seen something that sparks an interest and I want to know more about the artist or the times that they lived in. So rather than look it up later, I prefer to do my research immediately. If I take a couple pictures and promise myself that I'll do some research when I get home, well, more often than not life does tend to get in the way so better to capitalize on the moment.

So, I'd like to give props to the NOMA and their curators for putting together a very interesting collection of artwork. I wish that I would have had more time to enjoy their museum and sculpture park, but NOMA is now on my list of museums that deserve a return visit when I'm back in the area.

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[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20110428144554/http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Wayne-Thiebaud-is-Not-a-Pop-Artist.html

Animated Thoughts: Art Comes in Many Forms, pt. 6 - the "end of year" edition

I had hoped to end the old year and begin the new with some art and peaceful introspection. The Flint Institute of Arts did not disappoint.

Now I'll cop to it, looking at the main art museums in the Mid-Michigan corridor (Grand Rapids/East Lansing/Flint/Detroit), I vastly favor the Detroit Institute of Arts. But the smaller art museums here in Michigan have their charms. The Frederik Meijer Gardens has their yearly butterfly and orchid events as well as a wonderful outdoor Japanese garden. I haven't yet been to the Grand Rapids Art Museum, though I do hope to change that oversight later this year. The Broad Art Museum is a quick five minute drive from my home with a basement area housing older works of art and a video installation--and it's a quick walk from the MSU Library, good for research. Detroit has the DIA as well as the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village--all three had been invaluable resources when I was writing my animation history class. 

But the Flint Institute of Arts has some really appealing qualities, not the least of which is a 45 minute drive from my home (as opposed to the hour/hour-and-a-half to the DIA, depending on traffic). They've also got a well-stocked library with comfortable chairs and a sofa for reading.

"The Sheltered Path", 1873
Claude Monet

The decision of where I would spend my day was resolved almost immediately when I checked the FIA's website and discovered that they had a painting on display by my favorite artist: Claude Monet. Turns out, "The Sheltered Path" was on their visiting artwork list and would be on display until February.

As I stared at Monet's painting, I was struck by the impermanence of digital. There I sat, looking at a painting from 1873. The colors may not be as vibrant as when it was first painted, but still a beautiful work of art that, if properly handled, would still be there long after I am but a memory.

Over the past thirty years, I've witnessed countless works of art brought to life through computer software. I've been there during software releases and upgrades, and yes, witnessed software once touted as the 'latest and greatest' denoted as reaching their 'end-of-life' before being relegated to the dustbin of digital history. 

3d CGI, polygonal modelling, NURBS, metaballs, texture mapping, bump mapping, non-linear video editing, Corel Draw, Paint Shop Pro, Photoshop, Painter, Kai's Power Tools, Director, After Effects, Future Splash/Flash, Moho, Bernoulli drives, iOmega Zip Drives. I was there for much it. Oftentimes on the sidelines, sometimes in the trenches.

The march of technology is relentless. It's partially why I maintain a number of old computers with obsolete operating systems that are still capable of running some of this older software--so I can still access old copies of animations and imagery that I produced during my college and grad school days.

The computer has brought us works of art that were hitherto undreamt of. I doubt that even the old masters could have conceived of what is being produced by contemporary digital artists. I have to wonder, how constrained were their imaginations by the technology of their time? Thought for another day.

Back when I was in grad school at R.I.T., I had been playing with a freeware 3d rendering and animation software package called POV-Ray. It was a text based system where you'd plot everything out on graph paper using the Mark I pencil, then create a text file containing all the objects, their coordinates, and their properties for your scene. I was big on stone textures back then, so spent a fair amount of time making marbles using the various texture settings. This would serve me well when I needed objects to animate in my basic animation classes--like learning the squash and stretch principle by animating bouncing balls using Macromedia Director.

Squash and Stretch assignment

Since then, I have tinkered with lots of 3d modelling and animation packages like Alias Wavefront/Maya, Ray Dream Studio/Carrara, and Blender. But while useful and entertaining, none of those programs produce anything of permanence. I do still like to walk through museums and look at sculptures--mostly those of stone and glass--and think about how I would recreate them using 3d CGI software. It's a fun thought exercise and it adds an extra dimension to museum visits that makes them more enjoyable for me.

"Hadros", 2006
Petr Hora

Sculpture, paintings, celluloid film, animation cels, photographs from the early 1900's, even the hand-drawn paper cels from my MFA thesis, they will all outlive me. My thesis film is digital. Unless I do a transfer to celluloid film stock, one day, it will likely be gone with only the hand drawn cels and a couple printed images in my thesis paper as evidence that it ever existed. If care has been taken to preserve them, one hundred years later, we can still watch films from the 1920's. One-hundred and fifty-two years later, I can still spend an afternoon looking at one of Claude Monet's paintings hanging there on the wall. Over five hundred years later, we can still travel to Florence and appreciate Michelangelo's marble sculpture "David".

"Still Life with Fruit", 1855
Severin Roesen

I have to wonder, five-hundred years from now, will people even know about all the art we created in the late 20th/early 21st Century? Or will there be this huge cultural gap where art was being produced in physical format up until the 1980's and then it largely ceased. What will the museums of 2525 say about us? Will they even remember that we existed or will we just be a footnote in history, this big black hole of nothing called 'the digital age' where very few items of cultural significance survived to be appreciated by future generations?

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