Within the world of animation, most experimentation occurs within short-format productions, whether they are high-budgeted commercials, low-budgeted independent shorts or something in-between. The growing number of short film festivals around the world attests to the vitality of these works, but there are few other venues for exhibition of them, nor are they often reviewed. As a result, distribution tends to be difficult and irregular. On a regular basis, Animation World Magazine will highlight some of the most interesting of these films.

Cold Calling (2006), 4:30, by Nick Mackie (U.K.). Contact: Nick Mackie, Shufti Films [E] nick@shufti.co.uk [W] www.shufti.co.uk

Elephant Girl (2007), 4:30, by David Lobser (U.S.). Contact: David Lobser [T] 646.645.1782 [E] info@dlobser.com [W] www.dlobser

Metamorph (Metamorf) (2005), 10:30 by Ratski Ciric (Serbia). Contact: Bogdan Stojiljkovic, BS Group, Decanska 12, 11000 Beograd, Serbia [T/F] +381.11.3344.290 [E] advsn@eunet.yu

How to Hook Up Your Home Theater (2007), 6;19, by Kevin Deters and Stevie Wermers-Skelton (U.S.). Contact: Emily Hoppe, Walt Disney Animation Studios, [T] 818.460.8936 [F] 818.460.9202 [E] emily.hoppe@disneyanimation.com [W] www.disneyanimation.com

The orcs with the auto-dialers don't stand a chance in Cold Calling. Nick Mackie/Shufti Films.

Cold Calling
In America, "Do Not Call" legislation has had an enormous impact, possibly financial, but more importantly temperamental. We used to play regime change by lopping off the monarch's head and kicking it down the street, whereas now we just drop a leather ball and call it soccer -- similarly, the fight against telemarketers has devolved from a war to something more like recreation. Phone salespeople are now officially our tennis balls. Radio Renaissance man Peter Bergman tells me that when he's getting phone-spammed, one of his favorite ploys is to say, "You have reached a federally restricted number. Connect me to your supervisor and do not leave the room." He's a newsreader with an authoritative voice, so they always do. (They'd probably stand at attention, too, if he asked.)

Nick Mackie, founder of Shufti Films, a Bristol-based animation shingle, has had to endure a furious fusillade of nuisance calls since he started working from home. His short Cold Calling is his way of turning these turds into art. Mackie and his creative partner Pete Avery are the primary creative forces at Shufti Ltd., makers of short live-action and animated films, and they've had great success with a nutso series of one-minute miniatures for the BBC called "Hobbies," all about record collectors, stick insect breeders, and bus fanciers in Croyden. The shorts are fictional, but grounded in improvisation, so it's a natural that Mackie would find equal interest in recorded phone conversations as the subject of an animated short.

Like all good phone prank madness, Cold Calling is equal parts comedy and performance art, because two people are locked in artistic collaboration where only one of them is making art. Mackie's collaborator is a telemarketer who, like everyone at work, is simply living his or her life. Mackie, meanwhile, is a player making sport from that life in real time, and his opening gambits include:

• The "He's with Nellie" variant: Player says to wait, then activates recording of howling and trumpeting noises, while screaming for monkey to get off elephant's back.

• The "Oh Brian, Stop" variant: Player pretends to get Mr. Mackie, then comes back to phone and says "It's all right, he's out of the room, but I told you not to call me here!... I think he suspects."

• The "68% Solution" variant: Player affects nonspecific foreign accent, high-pitched whine, and fixation on dog food coupons, indicating to caller that he may be missing: a) important cultural context, or b) portions of left hemisphere.

Mackie does great work in this very old genre by thinking up great business for his animated actors. Like all Aardman alumni, he's developed a superb sense of where and when his characters' eyes should dart, and what other physical behaviors will ring true to this unrehearsed thing called Life. Here he's working in both flat and three-dimensional CGI in friendly Day-Glo colors, much like the peppy color scheme Shufti used for their opening credit sequence to Aardman's Creature Comforts series for ITV.

Like the rest of Shufti's product, Cold Calling is bright and wonderful and expertly timed, and it also has a friendly little gate weave to make it taste more like 2D (the whole thing was actually done in Maya). Nick has been in animation for a decade and a half, and Cold Calling has been feted both at Platform and at Annecy. You can see all of Shufti's work at the Shufti Films homepage, which also contains full contact information, including their, um, phone number.