OSCAR ANIMATIONS - 5
More Academy Award winning short animations.
Bunny by Chris Wedge (1998) (US) (7m) *
How do you get to direct an animated feature film like Ice Age? Make a beautiful animation like Bunny first. Or at least that's what Chris Wedge did and picking up the Oscar for best short animation in 1999 probably didn't hurt his chances. He also voices Scrat, the saber-toothed, acorn-obsessed squirrel in the Ice Age series (four features including Ice Age: Contintental Drift). In Bunny, we find an elderly doe (female rabbit) pestered by a moth - but is the the moth trying to tell her something... just watch it!
Bob's Birthday by Snowden & Fine (1994) (Canada/UK) (11m)
Bob's Birthday was co-written and directed by David Fine and Alison Snowden, it is an amusing look at modern life (as relevant today as it was then) and how the best laid plans can go horribly wrong. It is dentist Bob's 40th birthday and his wife has organised a surprise party. Unfortunately, the depressed Bob loses his pants as soon as he comes in and continues to say the wrong things while his party-guests are hiding and waiting to shout 'surprise'.
Mona Lisa Descending A Staircase by Joan Gratz (1992) (USA) (7m)
Joan Gratz is an artist and animator who pioneered the technique of claypainting - working with bits of clay she blends colors and etches fine lines to create a seamless flow of images. Mona Lisa Descending A Staircase is a dazzling example as famous paintings from history blend into each other in a seemless journey through art. It must have taken a lot of time and skill to create this masterpiece! Gratz still animates and often sits on the judging panels for animation festivals.
Creature Comforts by Nick Park (1989) (UK) (5m)
Those old enough will remember that Nick Park, the British animator who brought us Wallace & Gromit, first brought us his stop-motion clay animations in the form of Creature Comforts, which won the Best Short Animation Oscar in 1991 (it seems it took the Academy a year or two watch it). Creature Comforts is an often very amusing and thought-provoking take on zoos and what animals might say if they could talk and were given the opportunity to comment.
