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.

I Met the Walrus (2007), 5:10, by Josh Raskin (Canada). Contact: Josh Raskin [E] info@imetthewalrus.com [W] www.imetthewalrus.com

Shut-Eye Hotel (2007), 7:00, by Bill Plympton (U.S.). Contact: Bill Plympton, 153 W. 27th St., #1005, New York, NY 10001 [T] 212.741.0322 [E] plymptoons@aol.com

t.o.m. (2006), 2:57, by Tom Brown and Daniel Gray (U.K.). Contact: Tom Brown, Holbrook's Films, 1 Robbins Lane, Newport, NP20 1EZ, UK [T] +44 (0) 7787802015 [E] tom@holbrooksfilms.com, [W] www.tdotodotm.com

Here's another clue for you all: I Met the Walrus. © Josh Raskin.

I Met the Walrus
In 1969, Beatle John and his soulmate Yoko were in Toronto, Canada, bedding for peace. Fourteen-year-old Jerry Levitan was a local Beatles super-fan with a whole lotta chutzpah, and he snuck into the hotel that he thought that Lennon and company were most likely to have booked, carrying a portable tape recorder and intent on getting an interview. He knocked on every door on the top floor before a friendly maid told him which room the Beatle was in. Having found his walrus, Jerry brashly insisted that he sit for an interview, and John was in a mood to say yes. So it was that the pair chatted for 40 minutes about Beatles vs. Bee Gees, how John was having trouble getting into the United States, what all those lyrics really meant, and how young Jerry was one day going to be the Establishment, man.

Jerry kept the tape, and now Josh Raskin of the Play Airways creative team at Electric Company studios in Toronto has directed a visual accompaniment to the best five minutes of that interview. "Piss for peace, smile for peace, go to school for peace, don't go to school for peace" suggests the always surrealistically minded Lennon, and the visuals bear him out; illustrator James Braithwaite's pen drawings morph from a dog relieving himself, to a smile, to a school, to a boot smashing the school to bits. Speaking of revolution, John says, "Take Russia, France, anywhere they're at it" and the film does, spinning a globe that stops on amorphous island continents conveniently labeled "Russia," "France," and "Anywhere." Everything turns into everything else at lightning speed, just like when you dream: a building representing the machinery of the establishment becomes transparent so you can see the machinery John's suggesting, and when the phone rings in John's hotel room, the whole building becomes the base for that telephone -- out of which a hand bursts, pointing a finger in the shape of a gun, which shoots out filigree, et cetera.

The style and technique of I Met the Walrus is of a piece with the Play Airwaves team's MTV bumpers and "Flash in the Can" award show bumpers. (You can see all their work at The Electric Company's website.) Josh and company are basically in the business of creating photo-illustrated mnemonics, sarcastic yet helpful graphs and tables and icons, all built from found objects and bold pointing vectors of color. Documentary audio of natural environments or people in conversation are smashed up against ironically composed cultural icons, most of which are taken from clip art hacked in blissful ways the original artists never intended. They're fast, droll, surreal, and very funny. In I Met the Walrus the team's usual visual dynamism is there in spades, although the color palette is limited only to creams and browns, with occasional pink highlights.

The vocabulary of their style comes quite solidly from the 1970s, and I could be wrong but I think the members of this team were the ones running the filmstrip projectors in fourth grade -- the ones with the cassette player attached, where the narrator talked about the Louisiana Purchase and a loud BEEP sounded when it was time to advance the film one frame. At my school, whatever kids were behind the projector always seemed to miss one and get behind. At least now we know why they got distracted -- they were watching those horrible government-issue production values go by and thinking Man, someday I'm totally gonna rock this format. I don't know about the former A/V club of Monroe Elementary School, but the boys and girls of Play Airwaves totally rock.