See a clip of Brother. © Adam Benjamin Elliot

Brother
A much more 'minimal' approach to both animation and design are taken by Australian director Adam Benjamin Elliot, in Brother. The 8-minute film completes a trilogy of clay animations telling very personal stories inspired by members of the director's family; the others are Uncle (1997) and Cousin (1998). Like these two films, Brother takes a loving and humorous, but very matter-of-fact look at the life of its subject.

At the Annecy festival, Brother won a special distinction awarded for its humor and sensitivity. Elliot's talent in these films is in creating a character that viewers like and can identify as 'real' in a relatively short time, using strong dialogue that is expertly delivered as voice-over narration by William McInnes. The simply designed figures and minimal animated movement are strongly suggestive of childhood experience, out of which the stories grow. The English-language narration, though, is delivered objectively refusing to foreshadow the ups and downs along the way. Neither happy nor sad tales, these films are nonetheless very affecting. Elliot has developed a very distinctive style in these three works and it will be interesting to see how his future work develops.

See a clip of In/Dividu. © Zagreb Films

In/Dividu
The final two films take similar objects (household objects) and aim to explore form, but in completely different directions. In/Dividu, a 7-minute work produced at Zagreb Film, and directed by English filmmaker and multimedia artist Nicole Hewitt, is objective and analytical. It studies the material composition of various things, which include a common chair, a small office refrigerator and the human body. The inanimate objects are torn to pieces and then strung on what appears to be fishing line or another clear material. These pieces dance, transform and disappear in a choreographed study. At one point, the plastic line itself becomes woven into the shape of the chair, which is then further manipulated. The human body is filmed in extreme close and close shots, revealing the texture of skin and quick glimpses of whole body parts.

In a way, this section seems out of sync with the rest of the animation, since it is framed so differently. Although it is a study of the materiality of an object, its shots lack the environmental space of the other studies. As a result, it has a very different look and feel. Of course, this separation also is apparent because the objects are, of course, inanimate, while the human body, though analyzed like an object, nonetheless has a wholly different quality.

See a clip of Furniture Poetry.© Ancient Mariner Productions Ltd.

Furniture Poetry
The final film, Furniture Poetry, works with household objects again. Household noises on the soundtrack ground some of the animations in a domestic space while other segments lack sound or feature other types of noise. Uniting these sequences, though, is a pleasant chime that occurs during the transitions, helping to create a cohesive work.

While Furniture Poetry is non-narrative (like In/Dividu, it lacks dialogue), it nonetheless has developed a kind of humor through its animation. Not completely unlike squash and stretch in cel animation, the metamorphosis of household objects in this film gives character to the items depicted on screen.

Computer software has automated the process of 2D cel animation, so the 'perfection' of that look is relatively easily accomplished. However, the short films in competition at the Annecy festival have shown that there is not only a sustained (probably growing) interest in traditional 3D techniques, but an increasing expertise in using 3D materials. A member of the selection committee told me that by far the largest number of submissions were computer-animated, but a decision was reached to assure a more equal representation of materials and methods. I think this was a good decision. Happily, the festival has shown that a range of animation techniques continue to be applied successfully at all levels.

Maureen Furniss, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor and Program Director of Film Studies at Chapman University in Orange, California. She is the founding editor of Animation Journal (John Libbey, 1998).