Within the world of animation, most experimentation occurs within short format productions, whether they be high-budgeted commercials, low-budgeted independent shorts or something in between. The growing number of short film festivals around the world attest to the vitality of these works, but there are few other venues for exhibition of them or even written reviews. As a result, distribution tends to be difficult and irregular. On a regular basis, Animation World Magazine will highlight some of the most interesting with short, descriptive overviews.

If you have the QuickTime plug-in, you can view a clip from each film by simply clicking the image.

This Month:
Lemmings (2003), directed by Craig Van Dyke, U.S.A., produced by Brigham Young University. Contact: R. Brent Adams, associate professor of industrial design/animation, 265 CTB Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84602, (T) 801-422-4504, (F) 801-422-0490, (E) adamsb@byu.edu, (W) www.et.byu.edu/animation.

Rex Steele: Nazi Smasher (2004), directed by Alexander Woo, U.S.A., produced by WooHoo Pictures. and New York University. Contact: Alexander Woo, WooHoo Pictures, (E) alex@woohoopictures.com, (W) www.woohoopictures.com.

Rock the World (2004), directed by Sukwon Shin, Korea, produced by School of Visual Arts. Contact: Sukwon Shin, 55-1816 River Drive South, Jersey City, NJ 07310, (T) 917-392-9768, (E) ugly123van@hotmail.com.

Ryan (2004), 13:50, directed by Chris Landreth, Canada, produced by National Film Board of Canada and Copper Heart Ent. in association with Seneca College, Toronto. Contact: www.nfb.ca.

Flashbacks from My Past: Starry Night (2003), 3:46, directed by Irra Verbitsky, U.S.A. Contact: Irra Verbitsky, 421 Hudson St. #510, New York, NY 10014, (T) 212-352-1375, (E) irrav@aol.com.

If Lemmings proves anything, it proves that some students can hang technically with top industry players. © BYU.

Lemmings Ed Wood woke up early the day he died — Cliff the lemming wakes up late the day his species offs itself. Cliff’s a bookish sort, and on the morning in question, he awakens to dirt clods knock, knock, knocking on his head as the ground trembles beneath him. Cliff has fallen asleep reading a big friendly book about lemmings: “A LEMMING IS A SMALL ARCTIC RODENT,” it begins. “THEY LIKE TO JUMP OFF CLIFFS,” it continues breezily, with a centerfold image depicting exactly how this looks in real life. Cliff is momentarily panicked, until he eyes the spine of this library loaner and reads a curled-up label saying “Fiction.”

Calmed, he leaves his hole-in-the-ground domicile and goes for a stroll in the light of the Arctic summer, where he watches a crowd of several thousand of his best friends all heading toward the ocean. Cliff takes another wary look at his dire nature book, and his fears are confirmed when he rolls back the curled-up portion of the label: It’s “Non-Fiction” after all. Then it’s a race to the edge of the precipice, hopefully to beat the crowd and turn them back, but slippery ice and a domino-effect crowd surge threaten to thwart his rescue efforts.

I love the nested label-pulling conceit of Lemmings because it extends into the viewer’s own reality; we get to pull the last label off this work ourselves, since, yes, the whole lemming-suicide-en-masse thing is actually a Disney True-Life Adventure myth. Besides this post-modern phlegmatic interlude, Lemmings has a lot going for it, despite the cracks in the sheen of production values; it’s funny, the production design is a delight, and the music is by a real wind ensemble (always pleasant). The real reason this short took the Bronze Medal in Animation at this year’s Student Academy Awards, however, may lie in the college course from whence it came. Lemmings was produced at BYU for an animation class that was run like a studio — everyone had to pitch, duties were delegated, there was a pipeline. (In the class’ one sop to creative idealism and dodge from reality, the whole group voted on which pitch to make as a final project.)

In denying students a hothouse environment of overweening individualism, this BYU course is turning out ready-for-industry professionals, and the Academy just has to love that to pieces. Whether these students — nearly all of which, the short’s publicity insists, are now at effects studios all over the Left Coast — are being prematurely shoved into a mindset of cold-blooded professionalism is unknown. Cold-blooded or warm-, however, by the looks of this short they’re all gonna make it.