The three-day Animation Block Party wrapped tonight at the BAM Rose Cinemas in Brooklyn with a screening of 15 animated shorts, each under 15 minutes.
The biggest draw at the event, which focused on narrative works, was Henry Selick’s first solely computer-generated production, Moongirl, a fairytale of a hayseed kid who catches a jarful of fireflies. He’s spirited to the moon and meets its keeper, a girl named Lorelei who lights the satellite using the insects and an enchanted carousel. Selick made his fame as the stop-motion animator and director of The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach, but the imaginative design and movement of his characters doesn’t translate well digitally. The large-headed kids of Moongirl are too smooth-featured and creepy, like those dolls whose eyes roll open when they’re held upright. Matters aren’t helped by dialogue stuffed with wide-eyed kid-talk clichés. As the credits rolled, I was surprised to learn the dreamy orchestral score was provided by They Might Be Giants in what’s the least They Might Be Giants-sounding music I’ve ever heard from the guys.
One of my favorite shorts was The Wraith of Cobble Hill, directed by Adam Parrish King, a film student who submitted it as the thesis project for his master of fine arts degree at the University of Southern California. He also submitted it to Sundance earlier this year and won a Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking.
It’s refreshing to have a production of wire, latex and clay mimic life instead of the surreal cartoon universes of Selick or Aardman. The antihero here is Felix, a Brooklyn teenager who lives with his apathetic, alcoholic mother. He’s entrusted by the owner of the corner bodega, from whom he shoplifts regularly, to watch the store while he’s away on vacation. The story’s quiet resignation, like something out of Raymond Carver, is a tiny epiphany of trust and duty.
It’s filmed in 16mm B&W on a Bolex, the Fisher-Price My First Camera setup of film students, but the smudged, vignetted look of the picture works in its favor, contributing to the settings of a wet winter and bleak urban interiors. King handled the sound design, too, which is amazing, especially the music and voices Felix hears muffled through the walls of his apartment. There’s some wonderful incidental dialogue, too, as Felix and his friends climb a fire escape to their building’s roof to drink 40s and he debates the merits of Space Invaders with his incredulous friends.
Sprinkled among more staid or experimental works, the funniest short of the evening was The Moustache Contest by artist, animator and comedian Mike Hollingsworth, a black-and-white stick-figure production. It revels in the ridiculousness of four sea creature buddies who challenge each other to grow the baddest-ass moustache. You can watch it here.
The most informative short and one of the most beautiful was McLaren’s Negatives, a 10-minute documentary about the films of Norman McLaren, directed by Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre using footage of and narration by McLaren, as well as his own animation techniques. These involved drawing directly on film, producing thick-lined rotoscopes, even generating sawtoothed music by hash-marking the soundtrack portion of the physical filmstrip as one would transcribe notes.
