Sundance awarded its Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking to Don Hertzfeldt’s Everything Will Be OK. This short expanded on the same theme explored in his 2005 animated film, The Meaning of Life. © 2006 Don Hertzfeldt/bitter films.

As the preeminent gathering of American indie filmmakers, the Sundance Film Festival strives to program films that embody creative risk–taking, diversity, aesthetic innovation and independent artistic expression. These criterions have never been so evident as in the rich sampling of alternate universes created in the eight animated short films showcased at this year’s Animation Spotlight. To give full rein to their imaginations, the filmmakers have used every available tool, from hi-tech to hand drawn, choosing to experiment with ever expanding digital technologies or grounding their expression in traditional techniques, working in three dimensional photorealistic style or crafting a more impressionistic abstract form to tell their stories. The stories are as varied as the techniques used to bring them to the screen -- from fallen cartoon heroes to the tale of a Manhattan rat; from a primer on the uses of duct tape in biological warfare to a mother’s hunt for her lost son in hell. If there ever was a question about the future of animated filmmaking, this year’s crop of Sundance selections might have an answer.

The Sundance Film Festival 2007 Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking was awarded to Everything Will Be OK (U.S., 2006, 17 min., color & b/w, 35 mm) directed by Don Hertzfeldt. The film also received the Best Animated Short Award at the 2007 Santa Barbara Film Festival. Expanding on the theme explored in his 2005 animated film, The Meaning of Life, Hertzfeldt’s newest surreal adventure illustrates a series of dark and troubling events that force the protagonist Bill to reckon with the meaning of his life -- or lack thereof. Characterized by Hertzfeldt’s trademark animated stick figures, the film’s impressionistic style is flavored with humor as it builds steadily along an absurdist path to its over-the-top climax.

One Rat Short by Charlex founder Alex Weil had won Best of Show at the prestigious SIGGRAPH 2006 Computer Animation Festival. A feature version is being planned. A Charlex Film © 2006 New York.

Hertzfeldt single-handedly, wrote, directed and produced Everything Will Be OK. Beginning with the concept, the story was shaped through creative experiments and improvisation, as the project progressed. Hertzfeldt approaches animation traditionally with pen, paper and film, but instead of using traditional key frames, he animates straight ahead. He drew, animated and photographed the thousands of drawings himself, foregoing the use of computers in his animation or photography process. By drawing every single element over and over again, Hertzfeldt creates the jittery, kinetic appearance for his films. He also designed the sound and composed original music for the short.

A UC Santa Barbara graduate, Hertzfeldt’s animated films have been featured in more than 1,000 film festivals and theatrical venues worldwide. Filmmaker Magazine named him one of the "top 25 directors to watch.” In 2003, he co-founded The Animation Show, an animation festival that has successfully booked animated shorts into more North American movie theaters than any other in history.

Animated in an ultra-realistic style One Rat Short (USA, 2006, 10 min., color, 35 mm), written and directed by Alex Weil, founder of the New York design and production studio Charlex, won Best of Show at the prestigious SIGGRAPH 2006 Computer Animation Festival with its dark filmic approach to animation. This melancholy misadventure of love and loss on a gloomy Manhattan night follows a lowly subway rat led by the mesmerizing ballet of a discarded food wrapper to find his angelic, lab rat soul mate only to be separated by the realities of their disparate worlds.

Weil worked with a small team of CGI artists to design the photo-realistic characters and backgrounds. The film contrasts the gritty urban darkness of the hero’s world with the bright sterility and mechanical efficiency of the laboratory where he meets his beloved. To cement the sense of reality, the film was shot with a live-action inspired, hand-held style. The filmmakers kept the bittersweet story simple, giving it heart through the realistic characterizations of the love struck rats, underscored by a touching musical soundtrack.