Ottawa International Animation Festival organizers admit that Short Competition 3 is usually about "teh cwazee" and this year is no different.
An assorted gang of filmmakers checked in to see what condition their condition was in. Here are the highlights, lowlights and the standout.
Ottawa International Animation Festival Short Competition 3: Heads Up . . .
High schooler Stephanie Delazeri delivered a fun short with her Birds Walking (USA), featuring some fowl characters showing up with their own theme music. Pity a poor worm who was looking for the worm and seed convention . . .
Alexander Gellner's One Minute Puberty (Germany) was a smart and imaginative look at the bizarre changes that occur in adolescence. It's funny because it's true.
Luke Sault's Crowded (UK) tries to show us the world inside a schizophrenic's head. It's powerful but unfocused . . . perhaps that's the point.
At least the OIAF offered the occasional amuse bouche in between the intense shorts. Head Gear Animation (Canada) offered a trio of 10-second promotional spots for Oreo Cakesters, showing how the cookies are created in weird and wonderful ways.
Stephen Irwin's Moxie (UK) shows the emotional breakdown of a pyromaniac bear who misses his mommy. Nope, I'm not making this up. It's a dark and twisted little piece and it looks really cool.
Eamonn O'Neill's I'm Fine Thanks (UK, Ireland) depicts hanging on in quiet - and not-so-quiet desperation - is the English way. "Someone's got anger management issues," commented an audience member. Not exactly a pleasant experience, but effective.
Samantha Gurry uses found objects to create a tale of a baby's miserable life in Reddish Brown & Bluish Green (USA). The epilogue of how she found the objects she used in this short give it extra punch.
. . . Heads Down . . .
Once again, some filmmakers don't know when to quit when they're ahead, especially when it's experimental/abstract animation. Offenders this time included Koji Yamamura's Muybridge's Strings (Canada), a meditation on the nature of time. If Yamamura had meditated about 3 minutes and 45 seconds from his piece, it would have been more effective.
A similar problem afflicted Hoji Tsuchiya's Kuroi Longskirt No Onna [Black Longskirt] (Japan), which hit saturation around the 6:40 mark, with two minutes and 19 seconds to go.
That said, they both did better than Masaki Okuda's Idea ga Tsukamaranai [Uncapturable Ideas] (Japan). "That's never good," commented one audience member when the title flashed on the screen and viewers lost interest about 6 minutes in . . . with six more minutes to go. While we're at it, can we have a moratorium on references to Edvard Munsch's The Scream in films dealing with psychological issues?
Africanus Okokon's Passenger (USA) rated a solid "meh" from audiences. Next, please.
Malcolm Sutherland's Bout (Canada) was nicely handled, but suffered from a glaring continuity error. A wrestler had both his arms ripped off, but in the next sequence manages to rip a chunk of flesh off his opponent using his hands.
Danny & Simone Dresden's Made You Cringe (USA) didn't really, except for a scene featuring doggie fellatio. When you're reduced to depicting bestiality on film, guys, it's time to rethink a few things.
. . . And Heads Above the Rest
While Stephanie Delazeri's Birds Walking and Alexander Gellner's One Minute Puberty were worth contenders, it was Samantha Gurry's Reddish Brown & Bluish Green that delivered in a big way. This short didn't so much tug at the heartstrings as pound them to a bloody pulp, but it was beautifully done nonetheless.
Dominic von Riedemann - Dominic is the Animated Film Feature Writer, and winner of 11 Suite 101 Editors' Choice Awards.
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