Animated Short Films We Like - Like the "Other People's Art We Like" thread. Keep it under 30 minutes.

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World of Tomorrow (Don Hertzfeldt)

An animated film where a little girl is visited by a clone of herself from the future, combining a simple stick figure art style with some of the most beautiful visuals I've seen for a science fiction short.

Edit: Ninja'd 3 years earlier, not that I'm mad about it. I really do love this short film.
 
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Octocat Adventure
This is technically a web series, though I think it qualifies more as a short film.

As you can guess, Octocat Adventure is a bait-and-switch video series created by visual artist and game developer David OReilly. The videos were uploaded to YouTube in five parts under the pseudonym of "Randy Peters" between March and September of 2008. The first four episodes are around fifty seconds in length, whereas the last episode is two and a half minutes.

Whether it was a deliberate ploy by OReilly or the actions of someone who happened upon his work, the Octocat Adventure series made its way over to 4chan not long after the first episode was released. Users of the site were amused by the apparent lack of quality and took to flooding the videos with five-star ratings in order to bump the series to the top of the YouTube homepage. This raid is preserved in the comments section, where many of the comments are either overly analytical or overemphasise the importance of the series.

Forgive me for my first-year-of-film-school-tier analysis, but I think Octocat Adventure showcases the five stages of grief of a boy who has recently lost his parents. This is evidenced by the series being divided into five parts that showcase these stages in a loose, chronological order.
  1. The first episode is denial and anger, where Octocat tries to maintain an ordinary way of living while avoiding a greater realisation that disturbs him, ultimately culminating into his outburst of anger at the end of the episode.
  2. The second episode is bargaining, where Octocat repeatedly opens doors in an attempt to change his situation, even breaking his own morality at the end of the episode in his desperate plight to find his parents.
  3. The third episode is depression. Octocat has been transported to a world that he no longer understands. He doesn't appear to have a sustained interest in anything and does not mention his parents until the serpent thing appears. Octocat lashes out in anger at end of the episode, which is likely brought on by his depressive symptoms.
  4. The fourth episode is depression. Octocat is completely alone in the world and breaks down in tears after watching his parents being taken away from him.
  5. The fifth episode is acceptance. Octocat accepts that his parents are gone, shatters the delusion that he has been living under and starts to take responsibility for his wellbeing. While the new world that he's living in is devoid of colour and life, it gradually returns to him as he continues to move forward. The death of his parents is a tragedy that will haunt Octocat for the rest of his life, yet he somehow finds a reason to continue moving forward. The final scene shows Octocat solemnly trudging through an endless tundra, which contrasts nicely with his inability to navigate the desert world in the fourth episode.
It's not a masterpiece by any means, but the series has managed to stick with me over the years. I'm quite fond of the last episode. It's very difficult to make crude, shitty art look appealing, yet this series somehow manages to do it while also pulling it off in 3D. The low-poly, minimal 3D aesthetic is David OReilly's defining style and is arguably one that he was responsible for popularising.

David OReilly is best known for directing the "A Glitch Is a Glitch" episode of Adventure Time along with the music video to "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" by U2. He directed another short film called "The External World", which won a few awards in 2010.
 
The Meaning of Life by DON HERTZFELDT (2005, bitter films)

The Tell Tale Heart by TED PARMELEE (1953, UPA/Columbia)
 
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Billy's Balloon by DON HERTZFELDT (1998, bitter films)


Office Space by MIKE JUDGE (1992)


Whoopass Stew!  by CRAIG MCRACKEN (1992)



Rooty Toot Toot by JOHN HUBLEY (1951, UPA/Columbia)
 
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I saw this short used as an example to show how personal interpretation can be highly culturally contextual. "There Will Come Soft Rains" reflects nature’s indifference, it will contine regardless if people are around or not. The Russian interpretation is brutal and dystopian. The director growing up/living in the USSR probably influenced the lense that he saw the original poem through. It's one of my favorite pieces of animation.


(War Time)

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
 
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