by Jimmy Gilmore, Senior Staff Writer
The shorts showcase had its second display yesterday, and while I wanted to write about them as soon as I got home, I realized I didn't know what to say. I still really don't, except I think the selection displayed a vast variety of animation and experimental techniques.
Stop motion seemed to be the favorite, with Dias de los Muertos, Daphne 2.0, Cookie Crooks, and mono.nucle.osis all using some form of it. mono integrated multiple kinds of animation into an essay on, well, having mono, and the filmmaker was present afterward to talk about the different models and methods she employed. All films executed stop motion with great deftness, actually making me wish more mainstream filmmakers would go back and explore with it. When you take the time to make it look great, as these filmmakers did, the results are really fun to watch.
Junk Palace used marionettes and paper sets to tell the true story of two hermit brothers who collapse under the weight of their house of stuff. The dimensional techniques and handcrafted puppets made it an exhilarating piece to watch.
Others chose a bit more of an experimental path, with Fleeting, Place for Landing and Unsubscribe #1 looking more at visual patterns and modes of representation
Bubble, which was more of an animated music video, took more traditional 2-D animated methods.
These films were, simply, very hard to write about. They emphasized the experience of watching them and the creativity of putting them together. This has been a common theme of this year's festival, at least the films I've had the pleasure of sitting through. The Grits staff has made a concerted effort to bring atypical work, and assemble programs that highlight different kinds of experiences. These shorts were all great technical pieces, and many of them were more experimental than narrative, making them a real treat.
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