Every Wednesday, Chris Robinson takes a look at short animation films. Today: 'Bob Log III's Electric Fence Story', a quirky 2004 short from the duo Stock'N'Wolf.
When I first saw this entered for the 2005 Ottawa International Animation Festival, I had no idea who or what a Bob Log III was. I didn't really care cause I just found the story funny and loved the deliberately sloppy stop motion animation that beautifully matched the impromptu nature and oddness of the story. Only now did I look up this Bob Log III character to discover that he’s some kind of one-man band who performs in a cannonball suit.
It doesn’t matter. This was a film – a drunken tale of failed cow tipping made by a German duo, Sebastien Wolf and Tinka Stock (aka. Stock'N'Wolf) - that made me laugh, something so few animation films did then or now. I also loved the rejection of technical polish. A pristine and precious crafty approach just wouldn't have fit. It had to be messy and punk.
Plus...sure...I loved that this probably annoyed the fuck out of the animation purists (themselves in need of some electric fence encounters to shake them up) in the audience who want everything,
Sor
r
y...
had t
o pa
use to y
aw
n,
n
eat,
tidy an
d li
ne
a
r.
How bor
ing i
t mu
st be t
o li
ve li
ke th
at.
A well-known figure in the world of independent animation, writer, author & curator Chris Robinson is the Artistic Director of the Ottawa International Animation Festival.
