Date posted: October 20, 2007

Animation Shorts On DVD

For years I’ve been wishing for a DVD with some of my favourite animated shorts. Animated shorts are usually only shown at dedicated festivals and occasionally on television. After that they just vanish. At long last, my wishes have come true. The British Animation Awards have released a series of DVD’s with the winners of the biennial British animation awards and a collection of British and International Animation classics.

Volume 2 of British Animation Classics contains such timeless shorts as The Village by Mark Baker, the hilarious Oscar winning Manipulation by Daniel Greaves and vintage classics Café Bar by Alison Vere and Dreamland Express by David Anderson.

The 10 animated shorts included on International Animation Modern Classics have all won numerous awards at international animation film festivals. It’s a fascinating collection, with two shorts by Raimund Krumme, Laughing Moon by Kiyoshi Nishimoto and The Runt by Andreas Hykade. I could name a few dozen other shorts that I would have liked to have seen included, so I hope that it will soon be followed by volumes 2, 3, 4 etc.

Coincidentally this month also saw the release of a DVD with the Best Animation From Holland. The Netherlands, like the U.K., is a hotbed for animation and the biennial Holland Animation Film Festival is one of the largest of its kind. The DVD includes the intensely moving Oscar winning Father and Daughter by Michael Dudok de Wit, the hilarious 3 Misses by Paul Driessen, Sientje, who is very upset that her mother does not allow her to watch tv, by Christa Moesker, the visually stunning abstract landscape Barcode by Adriaan Lokman and Karakters (The Characters) by Evert de Beijer, which has been voted the best Dutch animated short of the 20th century.

The animated shorts included on these DVD collections are not only a showcase of the best in animation, they are also a fascinating journey into human nature and the imagination.

In animation anything is possible. Lines can turn into figures, a two dimensional world can become three dimensional and characters can melt into pure colour or substance. The range of animation techniques is endless, from line drawings to clay animation and from watercolours to computer animation. Animation is therefore the perfect medium to explore and give expression to fears, dreams and desires, which often unfold according to their own logic.

Creating an animation movie is often a laborious process. A minute of film can take weeks or months to create. For this reason filmmakers are forced to condense their ideas in a few minutes. As a result animated shorts tend to last as long as they have to. Full-length feature films usually last between 84 and 110 minutes, even though the story could be told in 50 minutes or less. Because of their relatively short length and their condensed nature animated shorts can be very poignant. I'm often struck by how much someone can say in little more than a few minutes. Just watch More by Mark Osborne and you'll know what I mean. On the lighter side, Adam by Aardman Animations.

Here's a preview of Flatworld by Daniel Greaves contained on British Animation Awards Vol. 2.