100 Greatest Animated Shorts / Everything Will Be OK / Don Hertzfeldt
USA / 2006
A century after Emile Cohl comes Don Hertzfeldt, an animator whose work seems to carry (unintentional) echoes of the French pioneer, not only in the simple stick figures but in the way that they both delight audiences while subverting the mainstream.
Hertzfeldt is a bit of a phenomenon, his screenings and Q&As attracting the fanatical kind of support usually associated with rock bands. He has, somewhat inadvertently, become a sort of figurehead for a kind of ‘lo-fi’ approach, different to most animators working today in the CG dominated industry in that he barely uses any computers in his films. Like indie rock bands using old lo-fi analogue recording technology for its warm wobbly feel, Hertzfeldt reverts to earlier techniques. Not content with going back to before the digital era in his methods he also goes back to before cel animation, animating with pencil on paper and shooting that straight on film on a rostrum camera, all his equipment rescued from the rubbish skips of the big animation studios. Even the pencil. Probably.
This cult outsider position is confirmed by his policy of not making corporate sponsored films or commercials, despite many offers, although he stresses this is a matter of personal artistic choice not some kind of political campaign. Don doesn’t think people should necessarily reject computers (or commercial work), he just doesn’t think they should reject pencils either, believing that we should be free to choose from all the methods of animating that have been developed in the hundred years since animation was born, each method having its own unique strengths.
Perhaps Hertzfeldt is also an example of a way for animators to survive independently in the future; after building an audience on the internet, relying on word of mouth and viral publicity, he now divides his time between the intensive work of making his films and then tours of screenings to encourage DVD sales through his website. In this way Hertzfeldt’s ‘business model’ is much like the strategy many rock bands must embrace to survive the age of internet, with its expectations of free-for-all looting which has carpet bombed the record business and now threatens to do the same for Film and TV.
Stating his influences as live-action directors like Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch, plus comedy like Monty Python and silent film slapstick, Hertzfeldt began making cartoons as a teenager after seeing independent animated shorts such as in the ‘Spike and Mike’ touring animated short film festivals; early Aardman, early Pixar, Bill Plympton and National Film Board of Canada. Previous to this, like most people, Hertzfeldt’s only experience of animation had been Disney and Warner Brothers, which he liked, but grew a bit bored of due to their formulaic approach. When attending film school to become a live-action director, Hertzfeldt continued making cartoons as a way to make cheap films without needing a big team and later shared the love by starting a touring animation festival of his own, ‘The Animation Show’ co-founded with fellow cartoon genius Mike Judge (Beavis and Butt-head, King of the Hill).
Hertzfeldt’s films can contain bleakness and laughs; in the universes he creates often things seem to be in some kind of disintegration. Hertzfeldt likes to focus on uncomfortable subjects, go into dark areas and find black humour in the futilities of life, which in a funny way is sometimes a refreshing change from the gag-filled escapism of a normal cartoon, in the same way that listening to Joy Division is somehow less depressing than listening to Justin Bieber (or is that just me?).
Everything Will be OK, Hertzfeldt’s seventh film, is the first film in a trilogy concerning Bill, whose life here is summarised through a number of quirky and funny anecdotes, which grow sadder and darker as Bill’s mental health deteriorates. As well as Hertzfeldt’s trademark primitive black and white stick figure animation, the film’s spilt-screen approach includes old photographs and many quite beautiful ‘in camera’ special effects creating memorable moments of colour and light (similar to the great effects in his earlier films created by distressing the paper frame by frame). Helping DVD sales was the critical acclaim that this film attracted and the fact that it and his earlier film Rejected were nominated for Academy Awards.
After completing the other two films in the ‘Bill’ trilogy in 2012 Hertzfeldt knitted them together into one feature film, named after the third film It’s Such a Beautiful Day, winning further praise and ending up at number 3 in Time Out Magazine’s ‘Best Films of 2012’ list.
To learn more about Don Hertzfeldt and his latest acclaimed film World of Tomorrow have a read of our recent interview here.
Note: The 100 greatest animated shorts is an list of opinions and not an order of value from best to worst. Click here to see all of the picks of the list so far. All suggestions, comments and outrage are welcome but please don’t shoot us, it’s only a list!