When you think of animation, you likely think of children's cartoons or MTV cartoons... perhaps anime or some of the recent blockbuster movies that have used performance capture and powerful computers to create new and intriguing worlds and characters. Animation, however, can be used to do more. The films in The Animation Show: Volume 3 do just that.
Rabbit, an animated short by Run Wrake, breathes life into the world of what must have been one of the most prevalent children's books as I was growing up - Dick and Jane. Everything we see has a text label above it, which moves as the items in the world move, like a Dick and Jane book come to life. However, things are much more exciting in Rabbit than in the stories I remember from my childhood, and they seem to revolve around violence, greed, and capitalism when Dick and Jane find an idol that loves to eat jam and kills bothersome insects by changing them into jewels. Dick and Jane plan to get rich quick, but their schemes prove to be their undoing.
No Room for Gerold explores an interesting directing and "camera" style. It's computer animation, but the camera is handled as if it were actual events occurring in a shared apartment, with one person filming the interaction with a video camera, much like Cloverfield. It's interesting to watch, with the juxtaposition of a realistic setting and camera work, but with humanized zoo animals taking center stage.
Carlitopolis apparently uses live film, photography and post-processing together to create what looks like scientific experimentation on a hamster, but features cartoon-physics, such as inflating the hamster, and cutting him in half to create two new hamsters. The presentation of Carlitopolis makes it appear one part science presentation, one part magic show and one part animation. The lines separating these, however, are quite blurred.
The Animation Show: Volume 3 is presented by Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt, who also had films included in this line-up. Mike Judge created a Beavis and Butt-Head Introduction to the show. Don Hertzfeldt's Everything Will Be Okay was an interesting piece, with some intriguing combinations of water-on-glass effects over animation, among other things. The narrative is done in a very run-on manner, feeling much like reviews done at ZeroPunctuation. The story was sort of rambling and not quite entirely pointless, but that was sort of the intention, I gathered.
Abagail takes place on a plane that is plummeting out of the sky and follows the story of one man on the plane and his experiences on the plane as well as his memories and thoughts during the experience, and finally it ends in an action scene in the cockpit, as he attempts to take control of the situation.
One D was an interesting short, which, while not actually being portrayed in one dimension, which we, quite frankly, wouldn't have been able to perceive, anyway, was entertaining, filled with sight gags about how things we are familiar with would appear in 1D. If you can ignore the fact that the film is called One D and simply enjoy the presentation, it is one of the lighter features on the disc.
Bill Plympton (Plymptoons) has been around for a while and is no stranger to The Animation Show and animation festivals. I was looking forward to showing J. R. Nip what Plympton's style is, but only one of the pieces that he contributed seemed to truly be his typical style. Guide Dog, the story of a poor little mutt that wants more than anything to be a guide dog, but can't seem to catch a break, has the familiar feel of Plympton's work. Shuteye Hotel, on the other hand, feels a bit different, incorporating 3D computer graphics into the creation, rather than just hand-drawn images. It's an enjoyable short story about a mysterious hotel room, but it seems to have a different feel than Plympton's previous works.
A couple of the shorts were animations that used photography. Carlitopolis did so, as was mentioned above, but another strange animation that utilizes photography is City Paradise, by Gaelle Denis. In this film, characters are taken from photographs, but their legs and sometimes arms are done using very simple drawings, creating very surreal visuals. The last animation of the Animation Show: Volume 3, the appropriately named, Game Over (Pes), is a stop-frame animation that uses primarily food items to convey scenes from videogames (think, "PacMan" made of pizza). Tyger is a mixed media animation, combining several elements, including puppetry.
Dreams and Desires (Joanna Quinn) follows the misadventures of a woman who takes wedding videos, but fancies herself to be a brilliant director. So, the "dog cam" wasn't as great an idea as she thought it might be... who knew?!
My personal favorites in The Animation Show: Volume 3 would have to be Astronauts, which actually was composed of several short vignettes, Learn Self Defense and Versus , most likely because these were more comedic in nature. Many of the animations in The Animation Show: Volume 3 were quite dark in nature, which is fine, but maybe not with so many all together.
I will say that The Animation Show: Volume 3 is not for everyone; many people will not be ready for cartoons that are this dark (in tone and outcome, not in brightness). If you, like me, are a fan of all things animated, then you're likely to enjoy watching The Animation Show: Volume 3.
