So as I was thinking about what to post for this week's assignment, I came a cross an oscar winning animation short entitled "Rejected". This is a short that is about a series of rejected cartoon ideas, and the best part, it is all done with stick figure drawings! This was especially interesting to me because I have a very limited artistic capability when it comes to drawing. That is a fancy way of saying that I have pretty much no drawing ability. I can basically only draw stick figures. This animated short is pretty hilarious and pretty awesome seeing that it is only done with stick figures. I guess it goes to show that I still might be able to make it in this class. Enjoy!

Rejected by Don Hertzfeld

I asked my roommate for some cool animated stuff I probably haven't seen yet, and this short film was the first thing he showed me. I began watching it and it seemed like just a dumb little cartoon at first, until he told me this movie actually got nominated for an Academy Award in 2000. It's all animated in stop motion using simple handwritten cartoons, like slightly more professional looking doodles a kid would draw in school, but the film gets very surreal and pretty dark by the end. Depending on how dark your sense of humor is, you might find a couple funny lines in this film as well. Just a warning though, this gets pretty scary, unsettling, and gory for such innocent looking characters, so if you're easily freaked out by that kind of stuff I might skip this one:

The most impressive part to me was how creative and well done the animation becomes by the end, with Hertzfeld using holes and wrinkles in the paper to create apocalyptic winds and black holes. You might be confused why this got nominated for an Academy Award even for how well done it is. I read this analysis after watching the film and it gave me a better appreciation for what I just watched:

http://mypage.siu.edu/lemminkc/materials/10on1-example2.htm

It's Halloween, so I guess it's appropriate I post some freaky stuff. This just happens to be some socially conscious freaky stuff.