Bristish Animation Awards 2

British Animation Awards 2

Available from British Animation Awards

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Gourmand

Extremely sparse line animation over selectively pulsing backgrounds of crayon color washes. Title dude goes to fancy restaurant alone to eat shitloads of schmancy chow. Robbers break into kitchen and steal all the food. Waiters eventually all come into the kitchen and don’t come back. Gourmand goes to investigate, pushing desert cart. Confronts thieves, brandishes knife, cuts shares of birthday cake. Whatever. Penguin Caféy score, slightly Mickey Mousey.

Andrew Higgins

The Little Princess' Birthday

Scottish guy sits at table writing a fairy tale. Lumpy but endearing clay figures appear to act out the tale of a princess, her evil father, and the contest to determine who she shall marry. Sparse and charming, if ultimately thin. No music.

Jim Lefevre

Bird Becomes Bird

Girl goes for a winter walk with an impatient mother. Spots bird on ice looking for goldfish in river. Girl identifies with bird, who jumps in the river and swims with the fishes—maybe. Bird comes up exhausted, ice cracks, girl screams, bird flies away. “I’d give anything”. Watercolor washes with scratched-through lines. Very Japanesey. Beautiful textures and effects. Pleasant.

Lucy Lee

3 Ways to Go

Mixed-media meditation on mortality. Three death scenes elucidated. Constantly shifting graphicky animation styles. A little punky. Rhythmic metallic music. Quite cool.

Sarah Cox

Staggerings

Screen is divided into a grid. Each grid shows part of some natural texture—leafy or rocky (all b+w). Grid pulses to scrapey electronic sounds. Unique. Weird.

Peter Collis

Swag

Very interesting style. Computer animation with cut-outy characters in deliberately faux-textured environments. Characters are stuffed clothes with no arms and pictographs for heads. Guy tries to rob bank, trips over homeless dude. Interesting mix of representation and iconography. Funky 80’s synthpop. Quite good.

Daniel Edwards

Death and the Mother

Predictably stark, black and white (mostly—little splashes of red, like Edward Gorey’s Dracula set) woodcutty tale of a mother who must travel dark and primal forests and undergo mythic hardships to give her son to Death. Based on H.C. Anderson tale set to dark late romantic string quartet. Very gothicky, in a way. See also her Pleasures of War piece on British Animation Awards 3.

Ruth Lingford

Stanley

Dark, Eraserheady tale of a frustrated man living with an ugly, mean wife he hates in urban bleakness. His only joy: his beloved prize cabbage. She cuts steak vehemently. He has erotic sex cabbage pussy dreams. She makes him choose: the cabbage or her. He picks the cabbage. Death and destruction ensue. Ugly and oppressive. No words, jazzy score—incongruously so at the end.

Suzie Templeton

Unison: ant

Very sparse line drawing of bear sitting and chewing. Ant tries to get him to move, bear doesn’t see him. Two ants try. No luck. Whole herd tells bear to piss off, so he does. Subtle union commercial.

Jerry Hibbert

Brisk: Rocky

Spitting image black and white Rocky spoof for Lipton Ice Tea. Competent.

Ken Lidster

Dino Time

Harryhausen directed spot for sugary dip with bread (yum!) featuring dinosaur eating Raquel Welsh stand-in. Classic cheezy stop motion/live action mix.

Ray Harryhausen + Mark Nunnaly

Fisherman's Friend

Traditional animated guy gets tortured through elaborate stylized factory—burned, frozen, etc. in order to shill mints or something. What is this Fisherman’s Friend? Looks deliberately nasty, in that peculiarly British way.

Stephen Weston

Flatworld

Very clever and sophisticated—yet hilarious—mixed-media animation tour de force. Most action takes place in a full 3-D animated city peopled with 2-D characters—literally cut-outs. Street worker with feuding cat and fish accidently cuts into cable line, releasing a bank robber from a black and white 30’s film. B+W robber quickly adapts and ensnares hero (and his pets) in cops and robbers chase. Classic switched luggage set-up. Cable mojo causes characters to enter TV world through puddles—where they turn 3-D (but still animated). TV remote gun battles ensue—great fluid time gag sequence with music. TV world enters “real” world through water threshold with ensuing antics. Fantastic use of different animation techniques that cleverly riffs on movie clichés as well. Awesome and endearing.

Stephen Weston

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