© 3D Films - clip

Slim Pickings
This plasticene animated short tells the story of a little creature who is so hungry he is forced to eat his best friend, who happens to be a plant. In better days, the two had shared picnics and joyful times, but now they are in a post-apocalyptic setting -- the last two beings on earth. To his horror, he realizes -- too late -- that his friend had produced a big tomato for him to eat. Director Anthony Lucas describes the film as Hitchcock suspense combined with classic tragedy, explaining, "On a hungry planet theirs was a friendship that was all-consuming."

The film’s success lies in its use of music to enhance the emotion in the film, which is created quite well through animation of the central figure. Also well designed is the environment in which the action takes place, which consists primarily of a dimly lit home and a junkyard. Lighting effects and a variety of camera angles and movement, as well as cinematic editing add greatly to the storytelling. Slim Pickings was shot with a motion control camera with in-camera effects on 35mm, using a Mitchell GC. It runs approximately 4 minutes and has no dialogue. The film was produced in association with the Australian Film Commission and has been shown at a variety of film festivals, including Sundance. It is distributed theatrically by Spike & Mike (contact: Sara Henson by e-mail: spectra@cts.com).

In 1995, Lucas founded his company, 3D Films, to produce all kinds of three-dimensional animation. To date, it has specialized in clay and model animation, making mostly television commercials and an occasional work for children’s television. Currently in production is a series of station IDs in the style of Jules Verne and an internationally co-produced short film about a drought in the Australian desert.

© Van Phan. - clip

Wild Card
Van Phan’s computer animated student project, Wild Card, depicts the search of a Queen of Hearts card for her true love. No King or Jack can satisfy her; instead, she holds out for the Wild Card. This work actually began as an exercise with cutouts, then progressed to an animated production using a deck of cards, which were sturdier and more suitable for animation. Through his study of various other works, Phan decided that his focus in the film should be on story elements, rather than detailed models and environments. However, he has used effects such as rack focus, shadows and silhouettes creatively, to add variety to his visuals. The card-like characteristics of his central figures, which are flat and simply colored, made them easier to model, bone, texture-map, animate, light and render. Skillful use of sound effects makes the hard card figures even more convincing. Textures were applied using scanned images and textures painted with Alias|Wavefront StudioPaint 3D. Animation was created in Alias|Wavefront Maya running on an SGI O2. Altogether, the project took nine months to complete. The 3-minute film contains English-language dialogue.

After winning several prizes for Wild Card, including SIGGRAPH’s Big Kahuna Award and a Student Emmy, Phan continued his work as a graduate student at the University of Southern California. He also interned at Sony Pictures Imageworks where he worked with animators on Stuart Little. Phan is currently working on his thesis film, Family Values, which should be finished by August 2000. The complete version of Wild Card, as well as interviews with Phan, can be seen on the AtomFilms Web site.

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).