Meticulous craftsmanship informs every minute detail of Madame Tutli-Putli -- from the hand-built sets and costumes to the original oil paintings. © 2007 National Film Board of Canada.

The spotlight at the Sundance Film Festival shone on an international collection of award-winning animations created from a mixed bag of techniques including hand-drawn, painted cell, enhanced live-action, 3D computer animation and cutting-edge stop motion.

Directors Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski formulated ideas for their 2008 Academy Award-nominated film, Madame Tutli-Putli (Canada, 2007, 17 min., color, 35mm), while on a train trip across Canada. Those ideas have manifested themselves as a stunning, stop-motion animation that takes the viewer on an exhilarating existential journey with the lonely Tutli-Putli, who boards the night train, weighed down by the excess baggage of her life. As the night deepens, she is caught up in a desperate metaphysical adventure where, traveling between reality and imagination, she confronts the haunting demons of her past as she is drawn like a moth to the flame into an undertow of mystery and suspense.

Meticulous craftsmanship informs every minute detail of the production -- from the hand-built sets and costumes to the original oil paintings that formed the saturated skies outside the train, to the unforgettable live-action eyes of the characters -- which combine to bring a fully imagined, tactile world to life. Abandoning traditional storyboards early in the process because they were too restricting, the filmmakers taped live performances with actress Laurie Maher, on whom Tutli was modeled, to create a "video" storyboard that was used both as a reference for the action and for character and emotion.

The filmmakers used groundbreaking visual techniques to update stop-motion -- one of the oldest animation techniques -- for the new millennium. The hand-designed, molded puppets were made with silicon to avoid the joint seams normally associated with the technique. Live-action eyes were filmed for each puppet and painstakingly selected from among the multiple takes. Opting for a slightly larger-than-normal size, they were then composited frame by frame onto the puppets by visual effects artist Josh Walker, bringing an unprecedented human expressiveness and emotion to each of the characters. Extreme care was taken to match the lighting of the live-action to the stop-motion set-ups.

Adding to the collaborative efforts of the visual artists were David Bryant and Jean Frederic, who embraced the same experimental and avant-garde spirit to create the film's soundscape and wonderfully mysterious musical score.

The film was shot digitally on a Canon EOS 30D. The digital stills were edited together and output to a HDTV master format, then filmed out to 35mm.

The filmmakers credit the National Film Board of Canada, producers of the film, for the insight and artistic integrity that made creation of the film possible. Madame Tutli-Putli premiered at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. It won the Best Animated Short at the 2007 Toronto Worldwide Short Film Festival and the Grand Prize at the 2007 Cinanima. It is nominated for Best Animated Short at this year's Academy Awards.

Dog has the look of old-fashioned animation, but was created using a mix of 2D computer-drawn and painted-cell animation. Unless noted, all images courtesy of Sundance Festival.

The mastery of director Hermann Karlsson's Dog (Iceland, 2006, 1 min., color, Sony HD Cam) is the animated film's ability to convey deep emotions -- both sorrow and humor -- in barely over a minute's time. The story is a remembrance of the death of a boy's special companion, the dog, and the decision that would haunt that youth for the rest of his life.

Using a muted, mostly gray and white color palette, the visual look of Dog mirrors the melancholy subject matter. It has the look of old-fashioned animation, but was created using a mix of 2D computer-drawn and painted-cell animation. The narration is unspoken, instead appearing as words on the screen. Atmospheric sound effects such as wind blowing and crackling fire enhance the visuals. Max Elliot's sparse piano provides a simple accompaniment to the simple story.

Dog premiered at the 2006 Berlin International Film Festival.

Director Osbert Parker combines animation and live action in Yours Truly (U.K., 2007, 8 min., color & b/w, Sony HD Cam), telling a dark love story filled with psychological tension that ends in murder as two men sacrifice their morality for the woman they love. The 16mm "in camera" reconstructions manipulate photo cutouts from magazines, movie clips and real objects in miniature 3D environments animated thru stop motion, into a multi-layered collage.

Osbert is a graduate of Middlesex Polytechnic who currently lives in London. His BA graduation film Clothes won Best Original Concept in Animation at the 1988 British Animation Awards. He has been working professionally as a commercial director for MTV, Nike, Budweiser, Citibank and Coca-Cola. He was 2nd Unit Director on Hallmark's TV feature film Arabian Nights and has created animations for the South Bank Show.

Yours Truly won the Gold Plaque for Best Animated Short Film at the 2007 Chicago International Film Festival. His animated short Film Noir (2005), a companion piece to Yours Truly, was nominated in 2006 by BAFTA for Best Short Animation and received a Palm d'Or nomination at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.