Memorable Shorts: SF Int'l Animation Fest 2010

What follows are the short films from this weekend's San Francisco International Animation Festival that in my opinion were most fantastic and that I think in one way or another stick with me forever.

I Forgive You (Pierre Mousquet, Cauwe Jerome, Belgium 2009)
Played as part of the Best of Annecy Program. An animation style reminiscent of The Simpsons. Two wrestlers fight, plot turns unexpectedly and the result is hilarious. San Francisco crowd chuckled with glee.




Jean-Francois (Tom Haugomat, Bruno Mangyoku, France 2009)
So beautiful. Hand-drawn. Noteworthy for its unique well lit drawings, and music. You feel like you are watching a video of a book. A swimmer remembers his past... Played as Part of the Best of Annecy program. Unfortunately this trailer doesn't show you much besides a bit of the drawing style. Try to watch somewhere.

Jean-Francois (Teaser) from Cube Creative on Vimeo.

I am Simon (Tunde Molnar, Hungary 2009)
Absolutely amazing. A wise voice within a dog. So well done you feel what it's like to be this dog. Noteworthy for unique drawing style, 1st person scenes of dogs running that make you feel like you are the one running. This 30 second trailer gives you only a taste of the drawing style. Try to see this somewhere.

I AM SIMON - TRAILER from TÜNDE MOLNÁR on Vimeo.

Wisdom Teeth (Don Hertzfeldt, USA 2010)
Humor in simple animation at its best. Wisdom Teeth was my own introduction to Don Hertzfeldt's work, but Hertzfeldt, a Fremont California native, is wide known for his humorous, simple hand drawn short films. He has twice been nominated for Academy Awards for Rejected and Everything Will be OK. According to Wikipedia, he hasn't ever worked any jobs besides on his own animation. This year the San Francisco International Film Festival awarded him the Persistence of Vision Award Lifetime Achievement Award, at age 33. Wow. While watching the delightful Widsom Teeth I asked myself, but why is this SO FUNNY?? Everyone in the theater was cracking up. It's only simple line drawings, how could it be so very humorous? Well, there all different kinds of humor, probably the humor in this is of the variety of the unexpected, suggested my friend Adam. It's true. The more preposterous turns the plot takes, the funnier. Check out Don Hertzfeldt's site, Bitter Films.


Topi (Arjun Rihan, USA/India 2009)
Takes place in 1947, at the division of Britain's Indian empire into two nations: Pakistan and India; a time when 10 million people were uprooted and one million were killed in communal violence at the borders.
A portrait of a young boy at a train station with is mom. This animation tells a very simple story, and makes me think about the idea that very large, complex ideas or periods of history can be translated or taught well via simple, well-done animation films. No, by learning this way we do not learn the details, facts, dates and numbers, but we do learn a little of the feeling of what it was like then. Animation has that capability. In my opinion the learned feeling will stay with you more than the facts and dates and numbers.
Very powerful. Watch in full below.


* As the credits rolled I noticed Original Music by Ludwig Goransson. I had the chance to meet Ludwig and film him at work as a Composer on the show Community for a project I was working on in Los Angeles. He is very talented.

The Gruffalo (Jakob Schuh, Max Lang, France 2009)
Shown as part of the Children's program. Pretty darn cute. Animals take us on a tour through the forest. Nothing super unique about this one, but it's a pleasure to watch and if I had kids I would definitely be excited about having them watch this. And Helena Bonham Carter Plays the voice of the mother squirrel. Trailer below.



Kool-Aid Man in Second Life
While I was not an immediate fan of this one because as at least at this point in my life as a rule I am not into doom and gloom future-themed- art (yes I think we should think of the future as full of butterflies and love and I did NOT like Blade Runner) this film has stuck with me. I enjoyed the unexpectedness of the whole arrangement, and it disturbed me to a point where I will remember it forever. Exactly what it sounds like, and then some. Watch in its tres bizarre entirety below.

A Conversation with Jon Rafman from badatsports on Vimeo.

Komaneko's Christmas "A Lost Present" (Tsuneo Goda, Japan 2009)

I LOVE handmade animation. You can just tell when something has so much time put into the craft. It's like homemade pie versus store-bought. Well, there's probably a better analogy for that. When watching this kind of animation, each extra attention paid to detail just makes you giggle with delight. This little Christmas animation is so cute you might cry while watching it, as my friend Katie admitted to. Tsuneo Goda is the animator, who is also quite famous for his Domo animation creation.
Watch in full below!

Komaneko Christmas from Kurt Hanson on Vimeo.

Phew. That's a lot of talent in one blog post.

Mai Mai Miracle at the San Francisco Int'l Animation Festival 2010

Since I'm a fan of Spirited Away, I was looking forward to seeing Mai Mai Miracle at the San Francisco International Animation Festival this morning. Mai Mai Miracle is directed by Sunao Katabuchi, who is a protege of Hayao Miyazaki's and worked as his assistant director on Kiki's Delivery Service. Miyazaki, who has received much critical acclaim for at least a dozen films and is considered the Walt Disney of Japan, is one of the few Anime directors who has managed to make films that have a worldwide appeal; and there are reflections of Miyazaki in Katabuchi's style.


I asked SFIAF Programmer Sean Uyehara why he included the film in this year's line-up, and about anime genre in general. One reason Uyehara, who has been a programmer with the San Francisco Film Society for 8 years now, loves Mai Mai Miracle is because he sees his 7-year-old going through the same themes that are explored in the movie. "I think it's a good film. And it represents something that's an important part of animation: Anime...One common theme in anime is exploration of that time of life between youth and adulthood. A lot of Miyazaki's films are about pre-adolescence. Which is interesting because a lot popular films usually focus on adolescence. Pre-adolescence is that moment when kids are figuring out their personality, how they fit in socially, feelings of empathy, how to deal with anger and disappointment...They are starting to understand how they affect others and others affect them."

I also asked Sean about the differences between Miyazaki and Katabuchi's work. He said that in Miyazaki's work "Usually the spiritual or dream world is as real as the actual world." In Mai Mai Miracle, there is more distinction between the two and "it's more about imagination than it is about mysticism," said Uyehara.

Mai Mai Miracle is a 90 minute delight for adults and children, presented beautifully.

This is also posted on fest21.com and filmfestivals.com

Heart Breaking and Beautiful: Anita Killi's Angry Man

What is it about animation that can capture emotion and feeling so well? I suppose it's just the theme I have been talking about: subjectivity. Because so much attention to detail is paid by the creator to every single frame in animation, there's a lot of room for her/him to display the kind of feeling she means to, and the world we see on the screen ends up being the animator's brain poured out into an animation.

Whatever the case, Angry Man created by Anita Killi of Norway, shown at the San Francisco International Animation festival last night as part of the Best of Annecy program rendered me the most heartbroken I have ever been by a work of art, maybe ever. I kept thinking while watching it this had to be because so much thought was put into the the look and the sound of it...The scene has been created so well. Now I see after researching Anita's website that she has never used computers for any of her work. Every bit of Angry Man is hand-made. It's no surprise Angry Man of Troll film AS has won awards across the world, including Short Film Special Jury Award at Annecy 2010, Best animated short film at the Chicago International Children's Film Festival, the 2010 National Film Board of Canada Public Prize, and was nominated for an Amanda Award: an award given annually at the Norwegian International Film Festival to promote and improve Norwegian film, as well as made the King of Norway cry.



This film is about domestic abuse, but shouldn't be misrepresented as only that. This is an incredible moving work of art. "It is of comfort to be able to combine artistic film with important issues. The issues shouldn't just be sad or heavy. But if the audience are moved it can open up for a good conversations or the feeling of having learned or experienced something important," says Killi on her website on the subject.

Angry Man starts with a little bird who says, "To everyone who has a secret..." What follows is a portrayal of an "Angry Man" inside the father of a young boy who thinks it's his fault that his father is so angry. Eventually we hear the birds whisper, "Pass it on." Thus the tagline of the film: Some secrets shouldn't be kept secret. Killi says on her website: "Through the years I've been more and more aware that my projects should have a proper message so it would feel right to spend years to create some tiny minutes of film," and "I primarily want to work with film for children that also should inspire the adults. Children are vulnerable and ear easily affected and that's why filmmakers should have a great responsibility as conveyors, messengers and educators. Quality film for children are sadly often of lesser priority than artistic films for adults which is of abundance."


Thanks Anita. Can't wait to see what's next.
Check out the Anita's film company, Troll Film AS, here

Hand Drawn Animation Over Digital With Gene Deitch

Last month at the San Francisco International Animation Film Festival I attended their retrospective of animator Gene Deitch's work for children. Deitch and his wife Zdenka who reside in Prague, were in attendance for the screening, and I had a chance to speak to both of them.

The showing included Deitch's works: Oscar Winning Monroe, The Three Robbers, TomTerrific, film versions of Maurice Sendak's In the Knight Kitchen, and Where the Wild Things Are, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, Why Mosquitos Buzz in Peoples' Ears, and Tom and Jerry.



The retrospective was the last program I attended at the Festival, and it was an interesting way to end the weekend because all of Deitch's works are hand drawn animation, while most of the other stuff I'd seen over the weekend was all digital all the way. In fact, Deitch and his wife are advocates for hand -drawn animation when it comes to children's entertainment.

Though he acknowledges the magic Pixar creates Deitch said, "Animation comes down to the story. With computers, unfortunately a lot of the characters look like plastic...and the computer is shutting out hand drawn animation, unfortunately erroneously called 2D..."

It could be argued well that hand drawn animation, the artist's hand to pen to paper rather than hand to mouse to computer, is more subjective, more of a reflection of the artist. It's more pure. On digital animation, Deitch said he doesn't understand the path many 3D animators seem to be on of trying to imitate reality. "I don't think we should be in the business of trying to animate real live action. It's a dead end. There's no way to do it exactly, so why should we try?"

Deitch's wife Zdenka, a less than 5 ft woman who he described as small but feisty, had a lot to say about this matter as well. "Done with computer, it has no heart. I prefer hand made animation because it has heart...The animator gives a life, a feeling to it..."

While watching the hand drawn animation pieces of Gene's, my thoughts were along these same lines. The morals of the stories stood out to me. When the animator draws everything her/himself, it means the artist's point of view and perspective are completely reflected in the characters, giving the experience of watching a real feeling, hmmm perhaps this could be called soul?

I talked to Gene, a man who looks about 25 years younger than his age, about the digital versus hand drawn idea after the screenings. "There's so much competition out there now for childrens' attention," he said. "We try to make something of lasting value." Deitch said he has grandchildren who live in the U.S., and he's not even sure they would be entertained by his works, compared to what he called, "The splash - bang of the stuff children watch on TV today... We're trying to create something real, with meaning," he said.

I asked Zdenka if she felt that hand drawn animation is not just for children, but adults too. "We make these not just for children...There is a lot of junk in the world. It is important to broaden the mind," she said, referring to adults watching too.


**Photo credit Hilary Hart San Francisco Film Society --Gene Deitch and his wife, Zdenka, with Festival Programmer Sean Uyehara and daughter Asta.

Encyclopedia Pictura

This weekend at the San Francisco International Animation Film Festival, my eyes were opened to a new world!
It is that of Encyclopedia Pictura. EP is an animating collective of three young men from Santa Cruz who are currently enjoying a lot of attention since their animation and production for Bjork's 'Wanderlust.' View here.


-Darren Rabinovitch, Sean Hellfritsch, and Isaiah Saxon of EP, and Sean Uyehara, Programmer of SFIAFF

Encyclopedia Pictura are definitely on top of their game. As designers /producers/ artists, they mix live action, digital animation, stop motion animation, and also they do stereoscopic 3D. Their work proves mastery of the latest animation technology (they use Maya, Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, and After Effects), as well as a well rounded sense of art. I think they must operate with %100 creativity and %100 tech skills, which is amazing to think about.

Because they are an independent cohesive unit, creating ground-breaking art, the three are reminiscent of a rock band- only they're animators. Music isn't the only situation where a small team of people can collaborate on an artistic vision and be successful and recognized for it!
*Note- This is also interesting considering our apparent switch to a visual culture these days*

The Animation Fest showed a series of their different short works, including Grow, Grizzly Bear: Knife, Bjork, Born Like Stars, Micro/Macro, Tactical Advantage, Seventeen Evergreen, Zion I: So Tall, Ballistic Jaw Propulsion of, and Spore.

I feel somewhat speechless trying to describe any of the pieces in words, because that's just it, their work is not about words but rather visuals complimenting sound. You can probably get that sense from watching Wanderlust. I can say however that when watching I was thinking about the idea of humans/earth as one. I kept noticing there seemed to be an emphasis on the beauty of (sometimes personified) natural non-human things (Watch Ballistic Jaw, Born Like Stars).

When the pieces were over and it was time for q and a, Founder Sean Uyehara had some news for us. The three guys hadn't arrived yet! Uyehara began to speak about their work when his phone rang. They were on the other line in the car on the way, so Uyehara held his phone to the microphone and we asked questions through him until they walked through the door to inspired applause. They had been sailing and got held up...

When asked about their vision, EP said, "We'd love to give people a sense of wonder through an experience that's not word based." I say mission accomplished.

Someone in the audience asked about if there's an underlying world view/ perspective that their work is made with. "It's an ecological perspective understanding the balance of all complex systems...Deep ecology," one of them responded (which means my thought of humans/earth as one sort of fits).

Even though Bjork offered them another music video deal, and also Animal Collective, a band they said they'd always wanted to work with (and also one of my favorite bands) apparently they're not doing music videos anymore. They didn't say why not.