Just forget the words and sing along

Monday, May 05, 2003

As I aimlessly ride my bike around Kumagaya, my mind wanders. Today, it wandered onto the subject of the animated short film. Pixar frequently shows short films of theirs in front of their movies. The Final Flight of the Osiris from The Animatrix is currently running in front of Dreamcatcher. This year's Oscar-winning short film the Chubchubs ran in front of Stuart Little 2. And, Warner Brothers has even announced they're going to be making all new Looney Tunes animated shorts to run in front of their blockbusters.

Do you think the animated short is making a comeback?

Once my grandmother told me of how their would be a half-hour's worth of animated shorts in front of films. That was back in her day. But now, it's my day. Some where, the short films migrated from the big screen to television, and animated shorts became nothing but the fodder of film festivals. Even Pixar admits that they primarly don't do short films for fun, they're proof of concept pieces. (ie something to get the bugs out of the new animation software.) And I guess it's Pixar who's kinda responsible for this trend. This really didn't take off until they stuck Geri's Game in front of A Bug's Life.

The animated short is a medium that hasn't been explored in quite some time. Right now, it's probably just being viewed as a novelty; something to get the kids into the theatre. You just know that the only reason why they stuck Final Flight of the Osiris in front of Dreamcatcher was to get all those Matrix geeks into the theatre.

I guess the animated short really won't make a comeback until we get that one, single visionary animator who really dominates the field. Like back in the golden days of animation, when we had Chuck Jones doing Looney Tunes, Walter Lantz on Woody Woodpecker, and William Hannah & Joseph Barberra doing Tom & Jerry. Sure, we've got our animators today, folks like John Lassetter and Brad Bird, but they're doing animated features. The short really won't come back until we've got a celebrity in the field.

And that's all I've got to say about that.

Just bought the 2-disc special edition of Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the big boxed set of the Back to the Future Trilogy. This is for my DVD stockpile. These are discs I'm buying online and shipping to my parents for my eventual return to Canada. The stockpile now includes the 2-disc special editions of Star Treks 2, 3 and 4 and Beauty and the Beast. Also, Disney's 4-disc set The Complete Goofy. My parents tell me my DVD player's been untouched since I left Canada. I'm really going to get it going when I get back....

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