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 their exhibition, 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.

This month:

Abridged (2007), 3:35, directed by Arjun Rihan, U.S. Contact: Arjun Rihan [T] 650.814 3145 [W] www.arjunrihan.com/abridged [E] arjunrihan@gmail.com

Doxology (2007), 6:10, directed by Michael Langan, U.S. Contact: Michael Langan [T] 334.220.5805 [W] www.DoxologyFilm.com [E] Michael@MLangan.org

Film Noir (2006), 4:48, directed by Osbert Parker (U.K. Contact: Osbert Parker [T] +44(0) 778.601.5728 [F] +44(0)208.347.6711 [W] www.osbertparker.com [E] very.fizzy@virgin.net

Love spans eternal in the quirky Abridged. © Arjun Rihan.

Abridged
The greatest love of all, it has been noted, is the ability to love yourself. If that's a big deal when it happens to a person, then it must really be a big deal when it happens to a National Landmark.

Abridged is a quirky, charming love story created by director Arjun Rihan as a graduate student project. Inspired by the foggy weather during a visit to San Francisco, Rihan decided to tell a love story about the Golden Gate Bridge... and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Two bridge supports notice each other one day, and their determination to be together, whatever the cost, causes no small amount of trouble to Bay Area commuters, but maybe, just maybe, there's a way that the bridge can strike a balance between duty and love.

Rihan devoted a considerable amount of research to the project, using Autodesk Maya for modeling, rigging and animation, with mental ray and RenderMan for rendering. The telltale San Francisco fog was created through the use of live-action photography, and was composited separately. The use of nontraditional character types in the film posed some unique questions for Rihan (how does a non-mobile, non-legged edifice express movement and emotion, anyway?), but through his own creativity and judicious use of Maya, he managed to overcome the numerous technical challenges inherent in the subject matter.

Sound designer Elizabeth Johnson, whose day job involves editing sound for video games at Technicolor, is responsible for the soundtrack, a fun, folksy guitar-driven theme paired with the chaos and calamity that goes with intra-bridge romantic entanglements.

The story is a simple one, told simply, but it's done very well, and definitely worth a look -- hopefully from a safe, stable, landlocked vantage point.

Even if you aren't spiritually inclined, you may find yourself beguiled by the tenets of Doxology. © Michael Langan.

Doxology
The filmmaker describes Doxology as "a tangent-peppered exploration on a spiritual theme." Once I read that and re-watched the film, it all started to make sense; my own guess at the theme had been "prep school demons will destroy humanity through tennis," and I'd like to think that I wasn't completely off-base.

Through a series of sometimes directly connected, sometimes not, vignettes, director Michael Langan explores religion and man's place in the universe. Do we have free will? Is it possible to connect with God in a direct manner, and if so, should we? Although this film has a lot of big questions -- some may argue that those are the biggest questions -- at its core, there are plenty of amazing visuals for those who'd just as soon not ponder Life, The Universe and Everything while passing an afternoon in front of a computer. But I digress...

Langan filmed a number of friends (including himself) and the world around him from multiple angles in locales ranging from tennis courts to airplane interiors in order to obtain all of the raw footage necessary for his film. Utilizing pixilation, basic stop-motion animation, time-remapped live-action footage, time-lapse photography, 3D animation (in the form of Maya-generated snow), and original postproduction stabilization techniques, he assembled a ready-made religion, Doxology, and managed to create an entire world, and everything in it, over the course of a six-minute film, which is no small feat. (I'm assuming that, in the seventh minute, he rested.)

The film's score is quite impressive, as well. Langan enlisted a choir, two organists, a box of cornstarch and a mariachi band to get the exact soundtrack that he wanted for the film. This pays off in a big way at the film's climax, which demands nothing less than a full church choir (created with a small church choir, by the way, with multiple recordings at different octaves and some skilled digital artistry), and the music doesn't disappoint.

And again, those who aren't spiritually inclined will at least get a kick out of the weird tennis ball tricks, floating carrots, automobile tango and Shiva shaving sequences. Langan himself admits that each audience member is likely to walk away from the film with his own unique interpretation. As for me, I'm stocking up on tennis balls and carrots, just in case Langan has discovered the one, true religion. It never hurts to be prepared.