Beauty is the Promise of Happiness (2006) By Jon Yeo

Jon Yeo's three year old short film is a visually stunning combination of video, 3D animation and still images. Imagine eighties Britain under the control of a sinister regime attempting to stamp out rogue deities. An assassin is sent out to kill an imaginatively rendered god, and in the process is consumed by it.

The harsh snowy world seems held together by old bits of electrical equipment, and its people have eyes that glow like light bulbs. The deity is the only character with a human face, and its lurid, over-saturated redness makes it seem even more out of place.

The film is a great example of what can be achieved with one actor, £60 and a lot of images. Judging by his website, Yeo is now hard at work creating idents for Sky.

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.