Children and Animals (and Reluctant Animators): The 2005 Oscar Nominees for Best Animated Short
Mike Gabriel is the only Oscar nominee this year whose animated short has played in theaters as an added attraction in front of a live-action feature. That short is Lorenzo, a remarkable, hilarious, groundbreaking piece from an original idea by Joe Grant and featuring an innovative brushstroke-on-a-CG-spline animation technique pioneered by Dan Teece. (For a thorough making-of appraisal, see Bill Desowitz’ article, and for a shorter summary see May 2004’s Fresh from the Festivals column.)
The feature to which Lorenzo was attached was Raising Helen, and whatever you may think of this light-comedy vehicle for Kate Hudson, Lorenzo is definitely the more historically significant item. In fact Lorenzo was originally slated to open for Joel and Ethan Coen’s The Ladykillers, and it certainly made a better match with this darkly funny remake of the classic Ealing Studios comedy. But for reasons that are still unclear, Lorenzo was bumped from Ladykillers, and we’re probably lucky we ever saw it — in front of a movie or on its own — at all.
As someone who has directed both features and shorts, who in recent months has been both employed and un-, and who still remains on good terms with the studio that made him both of those adjectives, Gabriel is well-disposed to consider the practical obstacles to achieving what every fan of animated shorts wants most — getting them back into movie theaters. Here, for our edification, is his first-person account of the Lorenzo experience:
“I probably saw Lorenzo five times with a Raising Helen audience. I snuck back in to get an audience reaction. That was really the only completely general non-industry audience that saw it.
“It took them a while to understand what they were looking at, because they didn’t know if this was the next movie. It just started in the black abyss, and people kept looking at it — it had the Disney logo, so they were thinking, ‘Are we in the wrong theater?’ I wish we had thought of putting on a card that let them know ‘And now, enjoy a new Disney cartoon short!’ But once they started watching, I could tell they went with it. It’s funny — they react exactly the same as the professionals in all the studios. The breathing on the glass, the sad face, the little tear — that always gets a laugh.
“In a way, the obstacle to overcome with getting shorts back as an expected treat before the feature is all the stuff they put in front of movies now. You’re watching TV for half an hour before the movie starts. Then you get the trailers, and at that point — man, you’ve been sitting there watching stuff for an hour. So it is tricky to have a short film start at that point, and have an audience eagerly awaiting it! It’s got to be really good, and really wow ‘em from the start, and it’s gotta be clear — ‘Don’t worry, in 12 more minutes your movie is about to begin!’
“I keep trying to make shorts somehow financially profitable and a reason for everybody to make them besides just R&D. I was at the Oscar nominee lunch on Monday [Feb. 7, 2005], and sure enough I’m talking with Robert Iger. First time I’d really met him. This was my opportunity. I said, ‘Robert, here’s an idea: What if, to make shorts profitable, you get a kiosk in the theater lobby selling the same short that you’ve just seen two hours earlier before the feature? So when you’re walking out of the theater, for $3.99 you can pick up For the Birds, or Lorenzo, or one of your favorite shorts, Geri’s Game. I guarantee half those people would pick that thing up.’
“He immediately loved it. He said, ‘I would pitch that, I would bring that in. I don’t know what the price point’s going to be, and would people spend money for that short of a DVD?’ I said, ‘In this day and age, when people are busy and hustling and they’re bombarded with short little bits and bytes of entertainment all the time, JibJab and all that stuff, I bet you they’d buy it if they liked the short.’ He said, ‘I think you’re right. I think it’s worth a pitch.’ So who knows if it took hold or not. But I really think, if you had as part of your lobby in the theater, the shorts that are out there right now, I bet people would pick them up. You know how people like controlling their entertainment now. Then you pop it in when you want to see it. Kids would pop it in all the time.
“People would walk out — ‘Oh, I want the ChubbChubbs short!’ And then you get the merchandise in there, and you’re starting to sell the dolls and toys. You really start making some money on it, if you have a good one.”
Lorenzo almost went out with The Ladykillers instead of Raising Helen, and Gabriel still doesn’t know why it got bumped one week before release, or even if the Coen brothers saw Lorenzo at all. But what filmmakers, he wonders, really want some other thing attached to their films? Why would the public need more than what they’re offering? “Maybe they have to be participating somehow financially,” Gabriel suggests. “They’re the main reason the public’s showing up, not your short. In a way you’re leaching off their audience to sell your DVD, so maybe they have a right to be part of it, too.”
In the end he feels blessed the thing got made at all. “Shorts are so personal,” Gabriel says. “They’re based on nothing except artistic expression. There’s no commercial lean in any way. Lorenzo is a complete freak of nature. I got away with it because it was halfway done anyway, and [the studio] looked at it and said, ‘Well, it’s turning out well. Just make it.’ I was under contract, so they were going to be paying my salary anyway.”
And for those who missed it theatrically and can’t get their hands on a preview copy, there’s good news from producer Baker Bloodworth. Disney is planning a compilation DVD “featuring shorts like Lorenzo and Destino.” Now that it has lit its tiny corner of the collective moviegoing radar, and with the Oscar nomination to boot — always a great hook for the cover of any consumer product — Lorenzo, it seems, stands a chance of hitting the home video arena soon.
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