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:

Command Z (2004), 4:30 minutes, directed by Candy Kugel and Vincent Cafarelli, U.S. Contact: Candy Kugel [E] info@buzzzco.com

Prowlies at the River (2004), 6:30 minutes, directed by Adam Phillips, Australia. Contact: Adam Phillips [W] www.biteycastle.com; Brackenwood Entertainment [W] www.brackenwod.net

Still I Remain (like a fish out of water) (2005), 1:43 minutes, directed by Tom Gibbons U.S. Contact: Tom Gibbons [E] tgibbons@downtimefilms.com [W] www.downtimefilms.com

Woman in the Attic (2003), 4:53 minutes, directed by Chansoo Kim, Republic of Korea. Contact: Allison Hirose, USC [E] ahirose@cinema.usc.edu [W] www-cntv.usc.edu.

Patricia Grey (2004), 5:39 minutes, directed by Anne Koizumi, Canada. Contact: Anne Koizumi [E] afterhoursproductions@shaw.ca [T] 403.280.3944.

If only we could all undo our faux pas like in Command Z. © Buzzco Associates.

Command Z
Candy Kugel and Vincent Cafarelli are the animators behind a trio of licorice-colored, musical satires of the entertainment industry that fans of the International Tournees should remember from the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Their latest short film, Command Z, shares the same instantly recognizable style as I Got a Warm Reception in L.A., Snowie and the Seven Dorps and We Love It, not just for the friendly, thick lines of their cartooning but for the song stylings and inimitable vowel sounds of New York-based writer/arranger Lanny Meyers.

To refresh your memory of this animation team and their sly, sardonic trilogy, I Got a Warm Reception in L.A. (1987) is a five-minute chunk of mid-tempo pop from the Yamaha DX7 era, telling the musical story of a New York writer who gets a good meeting at a Los Angeles film studio. He’s got a screenplay, and they love it, lotsa laughs — one writer even dies laughing —but darnit, once he returns to NYC and faces the bill collectors he can’t get anyone at Gigantic Studios to even remember his name. The animation has a unique look of liquid pastels on a black background, giving the short a neon glow that it also shared with Kugel and Cafarelli’s next short, Snowie and the Seven Dorps (1990).

Of the three, this “passive-aggressive fable for the nineties” probably gets funnier the longer you’ve lived in Southern California. In this modern retelling of Snow White, the evil witch is Big Apple-based — a clotheshorse with a Gucci fetish who can no longer abide her little-miss-perfect maid, Snowie. She hires a hunter to put Snowie on a plane to Detroit, but there’s a mixup and Snowie lands in L.A., only to end up cleaning house for the Dorps — Sorry, Creepy, Geeky, Later, Wimpy, Sleazy, and I’llCallYa, a septet of dwarfish theatrical agents. The witch tracks her down and poisons her, so the Dorps do the honorable thing — they schlep her comatose body onto a chaise lounge by the pool and hope nobody notices. But a roller-skating, narcissistic prince happens by, decides a girlfriend in a coma is a relationship he can really get behind, and gives her the kiss of life.

We Love It (1992) rounded out the trio with another song, this one sung by a group of executives reacting to a boy-and-his-dog pitch from Kugel and Cafarelli's production house, BuzzCo. Yes, they love it, provided they concede one teeny-weeny change — can the dog be a girl? Yes, and make the boy another woman — who falls in love with her own hologram — no, a robot! — And make them crime-fighters! — Et cetera.

In the last decade the team have made their rent at Buzzco making commercials and interstitials, and in between jobs have continued making festival shorts such as Fast Food Matador (1991), The Ballad of Archie Foley (1995), KnitWits (1997, originally a TV pilot) and (It Was…) Nothing at All (2000). Command Z finds them collaborating once again with Lanny Meyers, a busy arranger for TV and film who has composed a song about a keystroke we’d all like to take around with us in life.

Command Z is a fast-paced laundry list of various life situations where mistakes are made, be it the painter tracking yellow footprints in the living room or Lot’s wife sneaking one last peek over her shoulder. And wouldn’t it be lovely if we could Edit-Undo these everyday gaffes? From the parallel parker to Martha Stewart to God Almighty, we get to watch a variety of citizens undo their mistakes with ease using only two fingers of the left hand. If only, babe.

The color stylings are spiffy, the pace is brisk, and Meyers’ themes are as catchy as ever. No longer working in neon, the color palette has returned to daytime-TV shades. Also, and this is a good thing, they apparently no longer have a predilection for filling screen time by doubling the voice over with giant on-screen word graphics. (It was all very Downtown in 1989, but now it would just feel like filler.) Command Z was animated traditionally, colored in Photoshop and compiled in After Effects.