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Gumbasia (1955)
6.6/10on IMDb
Released
Give Art Clokey a few lumps of colored clay and a jazz rhythm and he can make you anticipate the next beat without a character in sight. Shapes swell, shift, and move on to the next idea before you’ve finished recognizing them. Pick this short for the pleasure of seeing the timing without a story imposed on it.
More about Gumbasia23
Animated Putty (1911)
6.4/10on IMDb
Released
A lump of putty keeps turning into something else. Walter Booth’s little trick film is an easy way to see what a change in shape can do when it comes fast enough to be a surprise. Try it for a short, direct ancestor of the transformations later animators would use to build an entire character.
More about Animated Putty24
Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase (1992)
6.9/10on IMDb
Released
Joan Gratz works the clay as if it were paint. Faces change shape and texture as they slip between different kinds of twentieth-century art. The short’s visual wit is in recognizing who you’re looking at for an instant before the surface starts moving again.
More about Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase25
Closed Mondays (1974)
6.6/10on IMDb
Released
When the works in an art gallery start to move, the simple pleasure is seeing a picture take on a shape it was never supposed to have. Will Vinton and Bob Gardiner use clay to keep the distinction between a finished object and a lump you could reshape pleasantly unstable.
More about Closed Mondays26
The Great Cognito (1982)
5.9/10on IMDb
Released
An impressionist can change his voice or posture between acts. Will Vinton makes his performer’s face transform as well. The fun is following the molded features as they start to belong to someone else. This is a short way to see clay used as part of an act, rather than just a surface in front of the camera.
More about The Great Cognito27
Adam (1992)
6.6/10on IMDb
Released
Peter Lord puts the animator’s hand into a cheeky version of the creation story. The clay figure gets to look back at the hand that made him like a performer who has some notes for the director. Choose this short for a literal joke about how much control an animator has over someone made of clay.
More about Adam28
A Plasticine Crow (1981)
8.1/10on IMDb
Released
Alexander Tatarsky’s short changes styles across three parts. It’s the crow section where flat layers of plasticine give the images their unreliable outlines. Watch the shapes as the song tries to pin them down. Their constant revisions are as important to the joke as anything the singer says.
More about A Plasticine Crow29
Last Year's Snow Was Falling (1983)
8.3/10on IMDb
Released
A man goes into the woods looking for a New Year’s tree and finds too many other things to want. Watch how readily objects and animals change shape as his thoughts wander. It’s a good dark-winter short when you want a story whose loose clay shapes are in on the narrator’s digressions.
More about Last Year's Snow Was Falling30
Grey Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood (1990)
7.4/10on IMDb
Released
The wolf sings to the tune of Mack the Knife, and the story wanders as far as Paris. Garri Bardin’s clay-puppet musical makes its wolf funny partly by giving that huge appetite a broad face that looks ready to swallow a room. Pick it for a fairy-tale spoof with a meaner streak than the songs let on.
More about Grey Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood31
Break! (1985)
7.4/10on IMDb
Released
Garri Bardin sends two modeling-clay boxers into a match they can barely endure. Their pliable shapes turn each indignity into a visual punch line. Try this short when you want the bodies themselves, right down to the way a figure deforms, to show how ridiculous the contest can get.
More about Break!32
The Sculptor's Nightmare (1908)
5.3/10on IMDb
Released
An argument over whose bust should replace Theodore Roosevelt’s sets up a very early clay-animation gag. In a sculptor’s nightmare, political rivals emerge from lumps of clay. Pick this silent hybrid to see animation used as a punch line inside a live-action comedy, with a lump that can keep taking sides.
More about The Sculptor's Nightmare
