I seem to be going through a period of writer's block; either that, or I'm just plain lazy. So instead I direct your attention to Don Hertzfeldt, animator extraordinaire. Before last night I'd never heard of him, but after a visit to atom.com -- a website for amateur and professional short comedy films -- I viewed Rejected, and I knew I was on to something special.
With influences from Stanley Kubrick to Monty Python, Mr. Hertzfeldt is both extremely talented and totally irreverent, a combination I find refreshing and charming. Born in 1976, he taught himself animation as a teenager and has been writing and producing his own animations since his 1995 "Ah L'Amour" brought him commercial success. In 2000, "Rejected" earned him an Academy award nomination for best short animation as well as a score of other awards including recognition at the Cannes film Festival. He's currently on a 16 week tour with his 22 minute "Everything Will Be Okay"
Hertzfeldt uses the old-school animation technique of drawing each frame and photographing it with a 16mm or 35mm camera. It's a painstaking process that beckons back to high school days of drawing flip-page cartoons in the page margins of textbooks.
Rejected
Another Hertzfeldt gem is his 1996 "Genre," an exploration of the modern movie.
Genre
Here is "Ah L'Amour," Hertzfeldt's look at dating rituals as might be practiced by the present-day teenager.
Ah, L'Amour
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I know this artist. John used to have him on his computer and show me stuff. These are the "stick figures" I told you about that he watched. yuk.
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