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:
Crimenals (2003), 2:24, directed by Gregory Araya, U.S.A. Contact: Allison Hirose, USC Festivals and Distribution, 850 W. 34th Street, Room G123, Los Angeles, CA 90089-2211. (T) 213.740.4432 (F) 213.740.5226 (E) ahirose@cinema.usc.edu

After You (2003), 2:24, directed by Christopher Cordingley, U.S.A., Contact: (E) cordingleyct@netscape.net

Lorenzo (2004), 4:47, directed by Michael Gabriel, U.S.A., produced by Baker Bloodworth. Contact: Baker Bloodworth, Disney Animation Special Projects, 811 Sonora Avenue, Office 2076, Glendale, CA 91201.

Early Bloomer (2003), 3:25, directed by Kevin Johnson, U.S.A., produced by Sony Pictures Imageworks. Contact: Chris Reichert, mPRm Public Relations. (T) 323.933.3399 (E) creichert@mprm.com

The Old Fools (2002), 5:37, directed by Ruth Lingford, U.K. Contact: Jane Colling, Sherbet, 112-114 Great Portland Street, London W1N 5PE, (T) +20.7636.6435 (F) +20.7436.3321 (E) jane@sherbet.co.uk (W) www.sherbet.co.uk

True crime on acid sets the tone for Crimenals. © University of Southern California.

Crimenals
Any artist who’s done collage knows the right juxtaposition can trigger an all-day laughing jag. Two unsuspecting images, once living quiet lives of iconic meaning in book, magazine or porn flyer, are suddenly smashed together and voila: the uniformed bobby parts his coat to reveal the body of a naked woman. Cut-and-paste in the visual arts has inspired countless artists including, to name just two recent practitioners, Burgess “Jess” Collins and Glen Baxter. The same ethos applied to audiocollage is what’s kept musicians like Negativland in business for 25 years, and inspired Plunderphonics-meister John Oswald to take razors to Agatha Christie audiobooks and give stern and serious narrators new sentences to say like “The Duke sprang forward with a pad and pencil and drew a breath of relief” (The Case of Death, 1991).

Animator Gregory Araya takes aural and visual cut-up techniques on a spree in Crimenals, a delirious hard-boiled collage produced in conjunction with USC’s MFA Animation program. Filmed in blistering monochrome, this CGI short is a sort of aphasic film noir, fused from equal parts crime comics, Anthony Mann and Berlin Dada. It begins innocently enough, with a stately pan across a typical comics panel, as announcer and the text box say together: “Crime. Criminals.” Then word and image start to play bumper cars: “Crimenals! A transference from unsavory to bullet-shaped letters!” With this Joycean outburst, we’re off and running, and over two and a half minutes we dip into a series of pulpy scenarios, chock-a-block with dames, dicks, stoolies, and snub-noses, all gloriously liberated from context and narrative logic.

If you’ve ever killed a whole day rearranging newspaper headlines to say “Ice Queen Nabbed in Stag Film Sting” or “Detroit Missing!” you can well imagine the giggle-fest suffered by Araya upon devising the nine true-crime-on-acid scenarios in Crimenals. In one scene, an anonymous mug is interrogating a man with a pumpkin head. Pumpkinhead is stuffed in a ventilation shaft and clinging to a rope. The mug hackles him ruthlessly: “Check club check? Checkroom check!” “Mm hm,” Pumpkinhead replies, unruffled. Cut to a man in suspenders smoking a pipe. A third arm, also holding a pipe, is grafted to his ass. “Homicide says all they’ve got to go on is the three Mother Goose slugs from the body.” A goat sticks its head through the wall and croaks, “I — can’t!” “Well, he oughta know,” Pumpkinhead quips. The scene ends with Pipe-man shooting Pumpkinhead in cold blood as he delivers his devastating parting salvo: “Tough luck, Nesbitt!”

Hapless viewers may find themselves quoting Crimenals dialogue for months. (I for one want the oddly zen-like exclamation “He’s as slippery as an Idaho in a barrel full of Nevada!” on a T-shirt, or better yet the side of a building.) Crimenals is a Student Academy Award nominee, so look for a screening near you soon; Annecy attendants will get to see it this June. Greg Araya animated Crimenals in Adobe After Effects and Alias Maya; the sound mix is by Juri Hwang.