Animando

This short animated film was sponsored by the National Film Board of Canada and it looks almost like two separate films combined. The first portion shows an animator at work (this is a real person--not an animated one) and shows much of the process of making an animated film. While many of the steps are shortened and combined, it does show the main ideas--such as backgrounds, simple animation, inking the rough draft, etc. All this is pretty interesting. Later, much more focus is on the character who was animated--showing him in a variety of animated styles. This part is less educational in nature and is more like a showcase of what can be done through animation. The quality was good, but I much more enjoyed the earlier portion--it was a nice way to explain the process to kids.

This short shows, along thirteen minutes, different techniques of animation. The production was filmed in 16 mm and made in a studio of the National Film Board of Canadá by the animator Marcos Magalhães.

The simple and entertaining story is very original and unique: a man comes to his office and draws a cartoon, which seems to acquire life, with movements in the most different scenarios. In the end, the man himself becomes an animation. The creativity and originality of Marcos Magalhães is very impressive and a must-see for any audience. The credits are written in Portuguese, English and French. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "Animando" ("Animating")

Such a current high rating to such a "simplistic" project of sorts that it makes me wonder why people get so easily impressed with certain things and dismissive about others.

This isn't me trashing "Animando" because I can recognise its artistic value, its merits and all, and let's face that it's really hard for a Brazilian animator get the chance to work or have an internship on a great foreign studio - National Film Board of Canada was the place where director Marcos Magalhães composed this short in the early 1980's (1987 as year of release is wrong by the way).

The whole scheme presented of himself creating an animated character with those stop-motion effects through real images are amazing and that's what ties the film together when we are not seeing the Woody-Woodpecker-like creature that goes through several adventures. Fine, there's plenty of different schemes and artistry involved, it's very difficult to accomplish the stuff he does but I was bored out of my skull with the character moving here and there, interacting with a scissor and there isn't much of a higher purpose when we see the animator being animated and creating the art - the art itself was just meh, uninteresting.

Don't get me wrong, this is a thumbs up, there's plenty of good things to show - it just gets tiring after a while until the animator return. The reason for the low-score if compared with the average score given is that the same director has a spectacular and far more interesting short film and no one's paying attention to it. The intelligent and dynamic "Meow" (1982) was even sent to the Cannes Film Festival in the short film line-up and that's a rare feat even today, the only animation ever sent to compete there, and it was a really meaningful project, amusing, funny, entertaining and with a meaning to it, yet who's watching it? Why is there a public to this simplistic view of animation but none to the more relevant one? By itself "Animando" is cool but not that great, compared with "Meow" is irrelevant. 6/10.