Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt bring animation show back to Boulder
The Boulder Theater was packed Saturday night as people of all ages ogled over the animated figures dancing on the screen at the Animation Show 3.
Back for its third year in Boulder, the Animation Show 3 brought returning fans as well as newcomers to the show. The show was created in 2003 by animators Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt with the goal of bringing the best in animation to a yearly festival. Judge is best known for creating “Beavis and Butt-head,” “King of the Hill” and “Office Space,” while Hertzfeldt is known for his films “Rejected” and “The Meaning of Life.”
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– Jenny Bergen |
“Animation overall is kind of looked at as the stepsister of film,” Robert May, 31, one of the producers of the Animation Show, said. “There’s that trend that animation is either for little kids or perverts-thick and twisted, or for children.”
Connor Link, a sophomore English major and Seth Dunn, a sophomore architecture major, were both surprised by what they saw at the show. Link thought the shorts would be geared more towards the college-aged crowd. Because both are fans of Hertzfeldt’s film “Rejected,” a black and white film with the only color being the large amount of cherry-red blood, they were expecting something more gruesome.
“With names like Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt, I thought it would be really obscene and violent, with a lot of blood,” Dunn said.
Though there was less blood than expected, one film, “Rabbit,” mixed 2D animation with computer animation to show two children slaughtering a rabbit and other farm animals.
The show included 11 animated shorts ranging from one minute to 17 minutes of 2D, 3D, computer animation, stop-motion animation, live action and experimental photography. There was also a surprise introduction from Butt-head of “Beavis and Butt-head.” He introduced the show while sitting in an armchair, wearing a red robe and smoking from a pipe-a much classier Butt-head than fans are familiar with.
“Overall, most of the films are international,” May said about the films brought in from France, Germany, England and Wales. “It’s the best of the stuff that’s happening other places around the world.”
May said there are more festivals, both music and animation, in other countries than the U.S. due to more filmmakers overseas making the type of films showed at animation festivals because there are more places for it to be seen.
“That’s really the big idea for getting together and making this tour,” May said about starting the Animation Show.
Having an outlet for filmmakers to have their work shown is what the Animation Show strives for. The small group of people working with the Animation Show is sent about 1,000 to 2,000 films a year. May, along with other co-producers, sift through the films, as well as actively seek new ones in other film festivals around the world, and then narrow it down to about 100 films. Then Judge and Hertzfeldt step in and choose what they think are the best films for the show.
“It’s like how you would build your best mix tape,” May said. “Not too much Claymation, not too much computer animation, and you have to have films where people can take a breath and catch up.”
Hertzfeldt’s 17-minute narrative, “Everything Will Be OK,” needs something lighter to follow it, said May. Figuring how to piece them together is a process. The lineup at Saturday’s show was the most refined of the tour so far. The crew is constantly changing the order of the shorts by gauging the audience’s reactions.
Hertzfeldt’s newest film was among the 11 shorts shown. “Everything Will Be OK” was the longest of all the films and recently won the Grand Jury Award for Best Short Film at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival where it’s been nearly a decade since an animated short has won in this category.
Gray Rogers, a senior majoring in fine arts, said “Everything Will Be OK” was his favorite film.
“It was the longest, and I could empathize with the characters more,” Rogers said about the film.
Rogers has been to all three of the Animation Shows, the other two being at the International Film Festival on campus. He said the first year was his favorite because there were a lot more films by Hertzfeldt.
“(‘Everything Will Be OK’) was a lot more serious, and more psychological,” Rogers said.
Hertzfeldt spent about four years producing his cult-classic, “The Meaning of Life,” and spent about a year on his award-winning “Everything Will Be OK.” This film experimented more with weird camera tricks than past films.
The Animation Show ended in an uproar of laughter with the one minute and 45 second short, “Game Over.” Directed by PES, the stop-motion animated film paid homage to five classic arcade games: Frogger, Centipede, Asteroids, Space Invaders and Pac-Man.
Last year was the 100th anniversary of the short film and the birth of animation. May hopes to have the Animation Show 4 back in Boulder by this time next year.
Contact Campus Press Staff Writer Jenny Bergen at Jennifer.bergen@thecampuspress.com.
