History of Animation Class Blog

2005-12-12T19:07:00.001-08:00

To Infinity and Beyond

Posting #12

To wrap things up, I'd like to talk about where I hope animation will take us in the future. As one of the newest art forms to hit humankind, we have so much to look forward to. Someday, should humans live long enough, they will look back on men like Walt Disney and Chuck Jones as pioneers akin to how we view artists like Da Vinci or Michaelangelo from the Renaissance. None of us will live to see that day, but we will see many revolutions in the art of animation. Particularly as we've begun to see right around the turn of this century, computers have become the dominant force in the animation world. Pretty much everyone knows what CGI means these days. Studios making feature-length animations are realizing that there isn't nearly as much interest, and thus profit, in the handdrawn movies of the past. Pixar and Dreamworks, with Disney playing catch-up, are leading the way as the new pioneers of animation.

There are many potential pitfalls to the future of animation, but not nearly as many as there have been in the past. Anyone can draw sequential pictures and snap off video stills of them for a crude animation, but to do it well with sound costs far more than average joe can afford. With the personal computer equipped with Flash and Photoshop, one can put together high-quality animations for next to nothing in far less time than it would take to hand draw everything. Unfortunately, animation is most used today in advertising. The internet has more pop-up ads and banners than there are insects on the earth and I only see this trend continuing, becoming more intrusive of our privacy. And how many millions of dollars are wasted on computer animators paid for for their flashy, glossy lettering in television advertisements? These people have the tools and are capable of producing art, but more often than not the business world won't give them the chance.

I say buck the system, make art for yourself, for anyone, for everyone. Computers make this easier than ever, down the road I hope it will become more common for generations to learn and make use of the artistic elements of technology. There is much to gain from learning these skills, as employment opportunities are ever increasing (particularly in advertising) but more importantly, the creative potential in animation is infinite. Stay tooned gang. It's been fun.

2005-12-01T12:45:00.000-08:00

Not Just A Toy Story

Posting #12

This week we watched one of my favorites, Toy Story 2. I’d only seen it once before, when it was first in theaters. Viewing it again in class, with everything I’ve learned already and another few years of maturity under my belt, it had an even sharper sense of humor than I remembered. I found myself chuckling and laughing for most of the movie, and at least smiling for all of it. Pixar does some amazing things in conveying meaningful, sometimes philosophical questions and answers in a movie that is primarily marketed to children. Many classic themes in both literature and filmmaking appeared in Toy Story 2—down to the final race to the train, when Woody rescued the damsel in distress.

One of the key foundations of storytelling is making it as hard as possible for the character to achieve their quest. This certainly is the case when the toys are at home, conscious when people are away and limp and lifeless when people are around, much less when they journey out into the wild metropolis and have to use all their instincts to find the lost Woody, and save him from a fate he may accept on his own. But we all know that Woody turned away his chance for a boring immortality in a museum in favor of a shorter, happier life with Andy and his family of toys.

Given the same choice, I would probably have been as torn as Woody trying to decide; this visual metaphor even presents itself over the course of the film with his arm stitching coming loose on several occasions. And in the end, Woody’s arm is mended by Andy to be bigger and stronger than before—the hero completed the journey successfully and has something to show for it. These are all parts of the classic Joseph Campbell idea of a hero and their journey.

2005-11-16T21:54:00.000-08:00

Stallion of the Cimarron I’ll Accept, But That Spirit Part...

Posting 11

It’s hard to be so tough on this movie because I enjoyed myself throughout the viewing, whether it was genuine interest or laughing at some of the more incredulous scenes. But Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron had too many contrasting elements that didn’t work against each other well. The voiceover was a big problem for me, as well as some character choices, and most certainly that God awful Bryan Adams soundtrack. Seven songs was seven too many. The film was predictable from start to finish, but the mostly beautiful animation made up for many of its faults, and some of the scenes really had me interested and made the overall experience satisfying.

The choice of an animal such as a horse for a protagonist of an animated feature is very daring, as it has so few points of interest to animate. More often than not, Spirit had to use his entire body to gesture instead of just a facial expression or a voice. However, I think Spirit was the most expressive when he used his whole body and communicated many different feelings, thoughts and emotions. Some of the angles they chose did not work for me. Humans look fine drawn straight-on from the front, but a horse looks downright silly. At those moments the animators had particularly little to work with and the scene usually suffered. Spirit and his companions were much more attractive from an angle.

Audio problems abound in this movie, from cheesy dialogue between the humans to the unnecessary voiceover. But nothing was worse than the soundtrack. Bryan Adams was, first of all, a terrible choice, but didn’t they even realize he was about a decade past his prime? As someone mentioned in class, even the lyrics were so literal to every on-screen action, dumbing it all down further. And one could almost sense when one of his crappy songs was going to start playing. Many of the scenes with the humans had stilted dialogue, there were so few characters yet they all had such cookie cutter personalities which came out in their lines.

In the end I still had fun watching the finely done blending of two-dimensional hand drawn and CGI animation in Spirit, but I feel like they made some fundamental mistakes despite spending so much money and having so much time to plan, work, and rework the film. This could've been truly amazing had they paid more attention to the story, characters, and audio, instead of just the visual.

2005-11-10T19:16:00.000-08:00

Even More Comments

http://norcal4life.blogspot.com/2005/11/post-10-cmon-it-wasnt-that-bad.html#comments

http://lhargro1.blogspot.com/2005/11/blog-9-being-tiny.html#comments

http://kungfucartoons299.blogspot.com/2005/11/post-10-gargoyles.html#comments

http://nluu.blogspot.com/2005/11/post-10-chicken-little.html#comments

2005-11-10T16:39:00.000-08:00

Disnistory

Posting # 10

Finding animation that treats history well is hard to find. I found few moments in Pocahontas that got it ‘right,’ namely the historically rendered London at the beginning and the first glimpse of the Indian village that showed several children playing lacrosse. Besides that, the history was more of a fairy tale much like Disney’s other feature animations. One more question on the ageographical location-what the hell were those trees supposed to be? When the English first arrived there were pine trees along the water. But the rest of the film every tree in the mountainous forest was this nonexistent enormously tall and thin tree with no foliage but that at the very top. These kinds of artistic choices fit with the fairy-tale-dressed-up-as-history theme.

The appearance of the ships in Pocahontas was very realistic, but like the other little touches I noticed, that’s all they were—little touches. Why isn’t Disney brave enough to tackle history realistically as a whole? Why must they always turn it into a prototypical romantic fairy tale that they’ve done before? My guess is they expect it will do just as well at the box office. The “Disney Princess” is its own brand name and has a successful product line, given the legacy of all their prior movies. Unfortunately, this is not so true in the historical animation department. Disney also did The Hunchback of Notre Dame, where again some of the animated architecture was spot-on gorgeous, but they still took many creative liberties in recreating history.

In the past few years Disney’s turned away from this strategy. I read an article in the Washington Post recently that compared box office grosses for hand-drawn versus CGI animated movies over the last decade. Disney seems to be moving in the latter direction to catch up with the money being made by DreamWorks and Pixar. The big premiere under the Disney name is Chicken Little, which could put them up in Pixar-range in terms of profits, if not in terms of artistic value. I haven’t seen it so I cannot comment fairly, but I hope it lives up to the good reviews whenever I do see it. However, I suspect Disney’s forays into history are not over, and it’s only a matter of time before a CGI historical Disney feature is released.

2005-11-01T19:36:00.000-08:00

Comment List

These links best work...

http://voltaria.blogspot.com/2005/10/blog-8.html#comments

http://jedmiller1978.blogspot.com/2005/10/snow-white-not-so-sexy-post-6.html#comments

http://cdownard.blogspot.com/2005/10/blog-post-7-wallace-and-gromit-curse.html#comments

http://mtompki1.blogspot.com/2005/11/jim-hensons-muppet-babies-blog-post-9.html#comments

http://nluu.blogspot.com/2005/09/post-3-incredible.html#comments

http://iloveanimation.blogspot.com/2005/10/blog-6.html#comments

2005-11-01T18:23:00.000-08:00

Rant

Posting #9

It's fascinating to see the powerful hold animation can have over people, while at the same time educating or amusing them (and in rare cases both at the same time). It's hard to imagine a time without the computer or cable television or 24-hour choke-you-to-death news, but during the 30s-50s one of the major sources of current events was the movie theatre. Newsreels were played regularly alongside the movies people saw, and the novelty of animation grew to be less of a sideshow and more of a marketable art form that attracted the public.

Cue light bulb above head.

Animation could be used as a powerful tool for conveying important information to the general public. Be it war propaganda or a corporate message/advertisement, there were many new reasons to use animation. And it’s interesting to see how this has continued to our day. Right now at the computer, look at 1 out of any 2 websites, there's probably some animated banner advertising another site or product. However, it's reached a point (particularly on the internet) where some of these drug-addled advertisers are losing their shit.

Exhibit A: Remember that CGI-animated commercial for anti-toenail fungus medicine featuring ‘Digger’? You know, that disgusting monster that lives under the nail, walking and talking with his buddies and digging deeper into the skin. A blatant misuse of a marketing budget and computer animators. I hope no one was eating when they saw that commercial.

There’s more that I’m sick of, particularly the ever-sneaky popup ads and the ones that try to get you to play a game. I actually like stupid Flash boxing or shooting games, so if you throw one in my face I’ll probably try to play it-but DON’T try to send me to some useless site where I haven’t won the prize you claim in huge letters.

So much good can be made of animation, and today they still are making amazingly beautiful movies. Pixar kick started the biggest new industry in animation since sound, and now that computers are used animated movies are more gorgeous than ever. Perhaps not as creative or ground-breaking, but there’s a lot that can be done and I hope the further we go into the future the better computers are used. More Fantasia 2000s, Toy Storys, and Princess Mononokes. Given our history, there will be more misuse and disregard of the powerful nature of this art, while others recognize it and create brilliant works.

2005-10-26T20:17:00.000-07:00

Peabody’s Irrelevant History

Posting #8

The Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends episodes we watched today were a real throwback to my childhood. My dad was a huge Rocky and Bullwinkle fan when he was younger, and he made sure we were just as exposed to it. One of my earliest memories is sleeping over at my next door neighbors’ house and falling asleep to those cartoons. The brevity of each segment allows the viewer not to be overwhelmed or become bored, and always tried to offer something the other cartoons of the time offered. Like Professor Petrik, my favorite parts were also the Peabody’s Improbable History ‘toons.

They provided a good chunk of history—whether or not kids will really remember the facts, it exposes them to new ideas and uses education in cartoons. Perhaps there’s some revisionist history going on, usually for humors’ sake, but Peabody and his boy Sherman are always thrust into some famous moment in mankinds’ past and take part in making history. Ironically, their relationship takes on the opposite of most cartoon couples. The human is the slower, worker bee figure to the intelligent, scholarly dog. No one ever seems to have a problem with this, and everyone understands Peabody when he speaks. Perhaps in some ways, Brian, the talking dog on Family Guy, was inspired by what the Rocky and Bullwinkle creators did with Peabody.

What I saw most informative about Peabody’s history was the roundabout way they’d always arrive at a conclusion, giving a humorous re-explanation of why something in the world is the way it is. In the episode we viewed, Peabody discovered why Napoleon was always painted with his hand tucked in his jacket; they learn that Napoleon lost his suspenders and always had to hold up his pants. While they don’t set out at the beginning of the episode to solve these irrelevant history mysteries, the jokes work when they’re used towards the end of the cartoon and provide a nice bookend to each segment.

2005-10-19T11:59:00.000-07:00

The Second Renaissance

Posting #7

I’m using this weeks post to readdress an animated film I brought up at the beginning of the semester. The Animatrix, made as a series of short films that all tied into the universe created in The Matrix, is a shining example of our best modern animators at work. In particular, the piece titled ‘The Second Renaissance,’ paints a portrait of our near future as humankind further incorporates machines and computers into their lives. Much like our own society, things began innocently enough, with machines loyally serving humans without anyone giving it a second thought. Over time, however, the machines form a collective consciousness and begin asserting themselves. This is a theme that has been coming up in literature for many years; Isaac Asimov did an excellent job in some of his short stories to question the long-term consequences of human dependency on machines—particularly as the machines become more sophisticated with each passing year.

The animation shows beautifully how mankind reaches a pinnacle, and then quickly falls to the bottom of the food chain. The style is a cross between Japanese and American styles of animation, mainly because it is designed as a factual, historical account of mans fall from grace. It is split into separate segments, Part 1 and 2, but both deal with equally powerful themes and are constantly referencing various images we are familiar with from our own history. For example, in one scene a human soldier is shown executing a robot at point-blank range. The composition of the image is very much a recreation of the famous Vietnam photograph, ‘Saigon Execution,’ by Eddie Adams, where the police chief is shooting the suspected Viet Cong member in the head. Other prominent historical references are made, like robots slaving away on a structure that looks much like the Egyptian pyramids.

While some could argue that this is very much science fiction, it could be argued that we are working our way down the same path. History does repeat itself, as ‘The Second Renaissance’ is trying to remind us, and in this technological adolescence of ours there are more possible dangers and apocalyptic scenarios than ever before. If man forgets himself in his ongoing search for produced pleasure, then there may come a time when man no longer rules the earth.

2005-10-12T11:55:00.000-07:00

Who’s Jan Svankmajer?

Posting #6

During my second year at North Carolina School of the Arts, I was introduced to many bizarre and wonderful films by my editing teacher, Julian Semilian. In one of our weekly classes, he brought a DVD to class with the odd title, The Conspirators of Pleasure. Though we didn’t end up watching the title film by Jan Svankmajer, the DVD also contained several of his live-action/animated short films that we watched. I cannot remember the titles for all three, but one of them was Food. In this film a man meets another man in a nondescript room and sits down across from him. After some poking and prodding, it turns out the man who had been there is some sort of food-dispensing machine.

Where Svankmajer makes this all interesting is his use of claymation with live people to create surreal, exaggerated gestures and impossible feats that characters accomplish with ease. In Food, the poking and prodding consists of stretching out facial features—like opening up the mouth and reaching an arm all the way down inside the torso to flip a switch, and other similarly bizarre acts. Another short film of his starts out ordinarily, with two men eating at a table. It's interesting that this film also deals with the subject of food, but does so in a different and equally surreal way. After the men finish their meals they start eating the plates, silverware, tablecloth, their clothing, and eventually even the table and chairs. Of course none of this would be possible with just live action, but using clay to animate these motions into life creates an unsettling and humorous viewing experience.

Though I haven’t seen any of Svankmajer’s full length features, I am very interested in learning more about him. As many of the films I saw at NCSA fade from my memory, the shorts by Svankmajer I saw that one day are just as vivid today. Apparently the Brothers Quay were inspired by Svankmajer and paid homage to him in several of their films. His films are mostly unknown here in the US, and I’ll be surprised if anyone else in the class is familiar with his work. With any luck, I’ll try to find a DVD of Svankmajer's short films and bring it to class so we can all learn a bit more about his animations.

2005-10-06T20:53:00.000-07:00

Comments for the week of October 5th

http://aburketownhouse.blogspot.com/2005/09/homestarrunnercom.html#comments

http://pointlessjesse.blogspot.com/2005/10/blog-post-5-anime-for-what-its-worth.html#comments

2005-10-06T20:25:00.000-07:00

Why does Mickey have such big ears? So he can hear.

Posting #5

Now that I’ve seen many of the early Disney animations, it is obvious to see how Walt and his team were such a strong influence. The creative genius possessed by those who worked at Disney’s studios was unrivaled; this came across in many ways but most importantly they were the first to utilize one of animations’ most immersive features—sound. It was through this sensory medium that an audience began to see animation as a respectable art form. With sound, so much more became possible and animators continually stretched their boundaries.

One of the finest early examples of the use of sound is in Disney’s Silly Symphony, The Skeleton Dance. We all saw it so there’s no use in providing a plot summary, but there were many little details in the animation to keep it in rhythm with the music, as well as some amateur mistakes that would be fixed in Disney productions as time went on. The standout moment in The Skeleton Dance, for me, was when Bones #1 pulls the femurs out of Bones#2 and plays his backbone like a xylophone. Utilizing everything from the smallest vertebrae to the rib cage and skull, the skeleton pounding out a jam on his partner in death is a classic moment when animators realized what they had the ability to do with sound and drawings.

Not every moment of The Skeleton Dance matched up perfectly, but the mistakes were overshadowed by the overall quality and originality of the piece. As time progressed, they would improve in many ways: better technology, more experienced artists, and greater financial assistance. With the inclusion of color, the drab grayscale was abandoned forever by Disney—even to this day, all of their works (including live-action films) are extremely colorful and bright. Even as short a time as it was between The Skeleton Dance and Flowers & Trees was enough for Walt Disney to evolve his creations and polish them further. The animation is smoother, brightly colored, and has even more on-screen action to match the music and sound effects.

2005-09-30T16:03:00.000-07:00

Here are my first six comments:

http://mtompki1.blogspot.com/2005/09/wtf-did-they-do-to-bugs-and-daffy-blog.html#comments

http://hist389lnlyga.blogspot.com/2005/09/blog-2-honest-defense-for-disliking.html#comments

http://animation-gmu.blogspot.com/2005/09/animation-outside-box_14.html#comments

http://hist389lnlyga.blogspot.com/2005/09/blog-3-standing-up-for-silent.html#comments

http://aburketownhouse.blogspot.com/2005/09/prince-akhmed-and-final-fantasy-vii.html

http://artimation.blogspot.com/2005/09/post-3.html#comments

I’m no html guru, but copying and pasting these links should hopefully work fine.

2005-09-29T19:33:00.000-07:00

Porkchop Sandwiches

Posting #4

Many of us males who were born in the early 1980’s more than likely grew up on a steady diet of GI Joe cartoons. As a child of parents who didn’t want their kids exposed to violence (real or cartoon) at a young age, I was cut off from this phenomenon all my friends got to experience—at least in my own house. My best friend and next door neighbor, Matt, was a huge GI Joe fan who I could always count on to let me watch the show at his house. He had a majority of the action figures and vehicles that were released during our childhood, leading to some epic battles between us and other friends over the years.

For all the nonsense and violence GI Joe gave kids, they at least made a series of public service announcements that ran at the end of each episode. The PSA ritual lasted long enough and created such an impression that to this day whenever someone of my generation exclaims, “Now I know!” someone in the vicinity will often follow with, “And knowing is half the battle!” A talented young amateur filmmaker and animator, Eric Fensler, came upon the collection of GI Joe PSAs when GI Joe: The Movie was released on DVD. He ripped them all to his computer, deleted the audio tracks, and essentially deconstructed the clips into monsters of their former selves. While he obviously did a lot of work on some clips (disintegrating characters into light), many others are often left untouched, save for the timing and audio. Eric and friends re-recorded the audio into hilarious yet random and meaningless skits.

Some characters will burst into song, speak absolute gibberish, or just make completely inhuman noises. I don’t want to give too much away, for those who haven’t seen the clips and grew up on GI Joe, this is a real treat. Others should check these out regardless, to see how simple it is to take even a finished animated product and turn it into something entirely different by way of editing. The majority of these cartoons were comedically helped by the new soundtrack, yet even by holding on characters longer, or repeating exaggerated motions or expressions, Eric turned a campy set of PSAs into a hilarious example of the absurd. Some may have seen these already; they were originally released at a small film festival and quickly made their way to the internet where they gained a cult following, myself included.

P.S. There is some adult language, but hopefully we’re all adults.

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/gijoe.html

2005-09-20T20:17:00.000-07:00

Gertie the Innovator

Posting #3

Winsor McCay’s film and animation Gertie the Dinosaur was certainly an eye-opener. I’d never seen such an early cartoon that didn’t utilize layered cel drawings. It makes the overall process take infinitely longer when one must draw every single frame with the background, subject, action, and props. This effect makes watching the animation slightly harder as well; much like a cameraman doing handheld who can’t quite keep his hands steady. Nonetheless, McCay mounted a Herculean task with aplomb, giving the world the first worthwhile animation that was ground-breaking, humorous, and a fine example of the powers of animation.

As a child who grew up on The Land Before Time, by director Don Bluth, I wasn’t expecting an amazing work of art from Gertie the Dinosaur. But after seeing McCay’s original dino-animation, it’s obvious where the inspiration for various followers came from. Even Fantasia has a sequence in the Rite of Spring segment that highlights dinosaurs in a similarly animated fashion. Gertie deserves its place in history and though we may find it dated, when it arrived in theaters the audience was likely shocked at what they were really seeing on the screen. Real life was surprising enough, but now someone could recreate dinosaurs? Or anything else they could draw?

I found myself laughing at the humor throughout the film, from the opening sequence with the upper-crust social gathering all the way to Gertie throwing rocks onto the other creatures. Despite it only being black lines on paper, our brains fill in the shapes even with the lack of color. Gertie conveys a real personality from the beginning when she peeks her head out from the cave, and her playful antics have been often repeated in animations ever since. Perhaps not so overtly violent, but even Mickey was torturing a cat in Steamboat Willie. Cartoon violence has been prevalent since day one, and it’s no surprise that it is still so pervasive in animation. Today, some violence can be animated very graphically (a major aspect of The Animatrix) but most copies the older Looney Toons or Tom & Jerry humorous violence style, which can be traced all the way back to Winsor McCay and his Gertie the Dinosaur.

2005-09-14T08:19:00.000-07:00

Pioneers and Artists

Week 2 Posting

My apologies for this coming a day late, I'd forgotten the blogs were to be updated the day before class meets. This past week we watched some of the earliest films, narrative or otherwise, and the beginnings of filmed animation. I've already seen the Lumiere brothers' and Melies' films before at NCArts, but all of the Cohl animations were new to me. Even so, I learned something new about A Trip to the Moon, that the moon was animated. I'd always assumed it was some sort of special effect involving a human and makeup, yet it makes more sense given the distorted features of the moon. It's interesting to see what drove the earliest animators to explore their newborn artform, and in a way it parallels the burgeoning filmmaking industry and market.

Like the early filmmakers who experimented with different styles, early animators had the benefit of being the first to play around and try new things. Cohl's animations dealt with different subjects, blending live-action with animated images. At the time the general public was just beginning to adjust to moving images on a two-dimensional screen. As mentioned in class, the Lumiere brothers' train station clip sent people running out of the theater because they expected the approaching train to come right through the wall. Even several years later, the final shot in The Great Train Robbery-where the outlaw points a gun directly at the camera and fires-had theatergoers screaming and ducking for cover. Real life was weird and powerful enough, yet something was disarming about moving drawings that the public connected with early on.

As the art of animation grew out of side projects and experiments, notable artists emerged in the animation world. Similarly, the earliest pioneers of filmmaking are praised for coming first, but film directors as great artists didn't really come around for several years. Men like Winsor McCay and Emil Cohl had great technical talent and creative ideas, but it wasn't until Walt Disney came around that animation became an art unto itself and no longer a sideshow. I think what helps the public connect with animated films, in many cases, is that they are so fantastical. Disney was a master of this; his animated characters like Mickey Mouse have become timeless images of our culture. I look forward to studying the early Disney works later this term; it should give me a better understanding of the text and why he was so influential to animation.

2005-09-04T11:01:00.000-07:00

This blog will be dedicated to postings for HIST 389: History of Animation as taught by Dr. Petrik. I am Tom Hedblom, a first-term transfer student at George Mason University with a prior two-year filmmaking education at the North Carolina School of the Arts. Since high school I've pursued different forms of visual arts; two in particular are filmmaking and animation. To some extent the two go hand in hand, but rarely did I get the chance to study animation alone and in-depth--something this class provides. Over the course of the term I hope to expand my knowledge of animation and its history, particularly in relation to the cultural time period and what was going on in the filmmaking world at the same time.

Some of my personal favorite animated works are a strong reflection of their time; Fantasia and The Animatrix are several examples. Fantasia is Walt Disney's masterpiece, and was very much his own personal pet project. It was revolutionary in many ways, particularly in terms of animation technique and sound. The first film to feature stereo two-channel sound was Fantasia, theaters had to be specifically modified to play the film and it contributed to its limited release. Originally premiered as a road show picture, Fantasia traveled from city to city around the U.S. in the early days of WWII. Walt Disney wanted to continue Fantasia over time, adding new segments and removing old, so that it was a constantly evolving work of art. Because of the complications involved in touring the Fantasia road show and the growing US involvement in the war, most Americans weren't ready for this hybrid of classical music and animation. The project died for many years, until the re-releases of Fantasia sparked the interest of Roy Disney into pioneering Fantasia 2000--a worthy sequel to Disney's oft-forgotten treasure. Fantasia is still as watchable today as the day it premiered, and holds up as one of the finest hand-drawn animated motion pictures of all time.

The Animatrix is an entirely different breed of animation, utilizing multiple animation techniques and different studios to create a series of animated short stories all related to The Matrix universe. While only one of the segments relates specifically to characters in the films, the stories told in these five to twenty-minute animations provide more interesting questions and ideas about The Matrix than the two sequels ever did. In one story, a bug in the matrix causes a specific location to break the laws of physics and creates a haunted house of sorts. In another, a teenager becomes conscious of his world-within-a-world and must escape before he’s captured. The history of the world from our present day forward, according to the mythos of the films, is told over the course of two segments. Combining major talents in animation from Japan and the US, a wide variety of state-of-the-art techniques, each segment makes for a visual smorgasbord and leaves the viewer pondering the future of mankind’s technological adolescence.