The Renaissance of Animated Short Filmmaking

Michael Ingrassia, The Short Filmmaker's Alliance

April, 2004

Since filmmaking began in its earliest form, creative individuals with enough passion and perserverance have created and experimented with animated short filmmaking such as Winsor McCay's 1914 "Gertie the Dinosaur" to Ray Harryhausen's stop motion genius. But the film industry matured quickly and the policies and politics of producing and getting your production viewed by the masses became more of an art of business and deal making than of creative aspiration. The work, time and quality required for short film development and storytelling is as difficult and complex as feature length productions - even more so since strong stories and character design needs to be created for the short duration of five to ten minutes.

But here is the exciting news, today with the advent of desktop workstations and software capable of Hollywood quality and speed we now find ourselves in an era of what I like to refer to as the "Renaissance of Animated Short Filmmaking." Now creativity and passion need not be suppressed by financing or distribution channels. Obviously better productions can be made if the latter is possible but individuals (which there are many) driven to succeed in their vision are now able to do so. Even more of importance is how the internet has evolved into becoming the "Theater to the World." Now a quality short film can amass great publicity and success simply from self promotion through broadband. As these productions get notoriety they are invited to join the film festival circuits such as the upcoming Dam Short Film Festival and the S.F.A.'s Last Chance Film Fest.

Some filmmakers have met with great success, such as Joey Jones has had with "Little Red Plane" which brought his Shadedbox Animations Studio the opportunity to produce an animated feature film for Walt Disney Productions. "The Cathedral" created by Tomek Baginski proves how the passion of a one man studio from Poland can take the filmmaking industry by storm. Tomek's film has now become "required viewing" for all animators at the Disney Studios. And of course there are the industry professionals turning out great visuals and storytelling that not only go on to win numerous awards and accolades such as "Henry's Garden", "Tim Tom" or "F8" but some move into productions for potential feature films or television syndication such as "Day Off The Dead" created by Dam Short Film Festival's very own Lee Lanier and co-director Jeffrey Dates. These filmmakers are the Michelangelos and Da Vincis of the 21st century, and we're all privileged to be witnessing their extraordinary talent first hand!