Finally, a great collection of independent animated shorts on DVD.

OK, I gotta cop to this. The title was my idea. Yeah, that’s right. One bored day I somehow landed on this mass email from Signe Baumane. Seems she and her New York animation pals were trying to come up with a title for a DVD they were putting together. Seeing this as a great opportunity to avoid whatever I was writing that day, I offered up some delicious titles:

Failed Illustrators
Bill, etc.…
A bunch of guys and some Latvian chick
Failed Painters
Another excuse for George not to finish his next film
Avoid Eye Contact
Animation Festival Rejects
Films that Never made it to Ottawa

You know...stuff like that. Just having a bit of fun. No harm etc.… Then the table gets turned and they actually USE one of the joke titles I put forward.

Anyhoo… jokes aside, this is one nifty collection of work for a couple of reasons. First, how often do we get our mitts on “festival” animation outside of festivals? Second, and umm… more importantly, there ain’t a slug on this here collection. So how did a group of indie animators manage to pull this minor miracle off? According to one of the co-creators, Baumane, “a lot of NY animators were salivating over Nina Paley’s DVD, which was published for free by this Crank DVD company.” While at a rooftop party Baumane got to talking with animator Fran Krause about how they’d love to have their own DVDs, but that it’s just too expensive to produce. “We came up with an idea to join the efforts and maybe get a DVD done by two of us,” says Baumane. But it was still too expensive, and, like summer, memories fade.

Animator Patrick Smith (left) embellished upon Signe Baumane (right) and Fran Krause’s idea for an indie animators’ DVD.

It’s July 2003. New York. Same rooftop, different party. Baumane and Krause start talking DVDs again. Then they spot another animator, Patrick Smith. Baumane asks Smith if he wants to be on their DVD. “Sure,” says Smith. What Smith didn’t know was that Baumane and Krause just intended to create some small time promo DVD to send to festivals and moochy animation observers. Smith suggested producing a REAL to goodness GEN-U-INE DVD that would be — GASP!!! — sold to people in exchange for currency that can then buy bread, tea and more cartoons. And so it began.

You festivalgoers will know some of these titles, while others will get a very fine introduction into what UN-bad animation tastes like. The DVD brings together established animators like Griffin, John Schnall, John Dilworth and some guy named Plympton with young pups like Alex Budovsky, Smith and a trio of ex-RISD grads. Among the highlights here are: Jesse Schmal’s Soviet inspired, Sub, about a woman, dog, soccer team, and the crew of a sub. They don’t come much funnier my friends.