The Drift (2007) by Kelly Sears

Judging by her website, Texas-based animator Kelly Sears spends much of her time foraging (great word, that) for materials in boxes of photos at antique markets. The Drift is a moving collage accompanied by a monologue. By combining old photographs of American life, Sears tells the story of an alternate-history space race and hippy counter-culture in which a group of astronauts go too far and in true 2001 style end up discovering something alluring, dangerous and awesome in the true sense of the word.


The film does an excellent job of summing up the story of an entire generation's hopes, dreams and downfall - the technology worship and optimism of the fifties followed by the tragedy and disillusion of the Vietnam War and the Cold War. It's a powerful exploration of America in the mid-twentieth century, like Alan Moore's Watchmen or the recent game Fallout 3.

The Wayward Hat (2009) By Grahaeme Cowie

Animation Digger is back after spending some time in Egypt and working hard on other things! This is a hugely entertaining film by Grahaeme Cowie about a stolen hat with plenty of slapstick comedy and a pair of brilliantly formed main characters.


As with all well made animation it's the attention to detail that stands out. Witness the leaves twirling and blowing down the street, and the homeless man's walk cycle that suits his rotund figure perfectly. The characters are very colourful and bold, which sets them apart from the backgrounds just enough to enhance their presence without appearing out of place in their surroundings.


Expect to see more on here from the students of Vancouver Film School as I continue to raid their Vimeo channel.

Anyone (2008) by Ryan Fedyk

New York-based animator Ryan Fedyk's Anyone is an intriguing two minute 3D animation which seems to raise a lot of questions and then (like a lot of good films) answer none of them. A beautifully sculpted pig-like man transmits messages in morse code from a dingy room over and over, until he finally gets a response from a contact who provides reassurance, possibly as a deception.
Fedyk has chosen to reduce the animation down to a series of still images, which gives the impression that we could be watching snapshots taken from the main character's life rather than a series of sequential events. It certainly helps enforce the idea of repetition and isolation.

MILK by Bastien Roger

As more and more big budget 3D animated films are released we're getting used to seeing extremely detailed smooth animation, and this is also becoming true of stop motion if The Corpse Bride is anything to go by. MILK is a refreshing (hur hur) piece of animation by the French animator Bastien Roger. Made last year, it was featured in this year's Bitfilm Festival. He uses pixillation, a technique in which the animator removes frames from live action footage to give a similar result to stop motion.


In MILK an orange-painted man abandons his daily routine to drift aimlessly through an indifferent world made up of chaotic ripped up adverts. It's only when he takes drastic action to change his environment that he manages to escape. The film has a really interesting visual style to it, and the animation of the protagonist is awkward and jerky which somehow makes him seem ill at ease with his surroundings. The soundtrack by Pictureshop is also worth mentioning as it really helps the mood. Personally MILK reminded me of playing old PC adventure games from the 90s that used green-screened actors against mostly static backgrounds, which (perhaps unintentionally) helped me empathise with the main character. The film was voted 11th out of 18 in the FX Mix (mixed techniques) category.