Oscar Week Events – ANIMATED AND LIVE ACTION SHORTS

Kicking off the week was the “Oscar Celebrates: Shorts” event on Tuesday, February 25, 2014 at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.

Actor Kevin Pollack hosted the evening with screenings of all the 2013 Oscar-nominated films in the Animated and Live Action Short Film categories, plus onstage discussions with the filmmakers.

So what exactly qualifies a film into these categories? According to AMPAS rule 19, “a short film is defined as an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits.” It goes on to say, “An animated film is created by using a frame-by-frame technique, and usually falls into one of the two general fields of animation: character or abstract.  Some of the techniques of animating films include cel animation, computer animation, stop-motion, clay animation, pixilation, cutouts, pins, camera multiple pass imagery, kaleidoscopic effects, and drawing on the film frame itself.” A live action film “uses live action techniques as the basic medium of entertainment.”

Kim Magnusson, co-director of the Oscar® nominated live action short film “Helium”, Baldwin Li, co-directors of the Oscar® nominated live action short film “The Voorman Problem”, Anders Walter, co-director of the Oscar® nominated live action short film “Helium”, Kirsikka Saari, co-director of the Oscar® nominated live action short film “Pitääkö Mun Kaikki Hoitaa? (Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?)”, Mark Gill, co-director of the Oscar® nominated live action short film “The Voorman Problem”, Esteban Crespo, director of the Oscar® nominated live action short film “Aquel No Era Yo (That Wasn’t Me)”, and Selma Vilhunen, co-directors of the Oscar® nominated live action short film “Pitääkö Mun Kaikki Hoitaa? (Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?).”

The nominees for Best Animated Short Film are:

The nominees for Best Live Action Short Film:

The Shorts program was a fun start and Kevin Pollak was a very funny host. He starred in the nominated short, OUR TIME IS UP, 10 years ago. The nominees talked about how GET A HORSE! has incredible 3D that voters will miss if they watch a DVD screener. Maybe a lot of voters will have seen it before FROZEN?

This is the first time the category is open to all voters since everyone got screeners. The theatrical/VOD/iTunes release continues to grow strongly each year. The animated shorts have very strong nominees this year and our favorite was ROOM ON THE BROOM.

Host Kevin Pollack, Lauren MacMullen and Dorothy McKim, co-directors of the Oscar® nominated animated short film “Get a Horse!”, Laurent Witz and Alexandre Espigares, co-directors of the Oscar® nominated animated short film “Mr. Hublot”, Daniel Sousa and Dan Golden, co-directors of the Oscar® nominated animated short film “Feral”, Shuhei Morita, director of the Oscar® nominated animated short film “Possessions”, and Jan Lachauer and Max Lang, co-directors of the Oscar® nominated animated short film “Room on the Broom” during the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ “Oscar Celebrates: Shorts” event on Tuesday, February 25, 2014 at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.

From left: Dan Golden, co-director of the Oscar® nominated animated short film “Feral”, Jan Lachauer, co-director of the Oscar® nominated animated short film “Room on the Broom”, Dorothy McKim, co-director of the Oscar® nominated animated short film “Get a Horse!”, Max Lang, co-directors of the Oscar® nominated animated short film “Room on the Broom”, Alexandre Espigares, co-director of the Oscar® nominated animated short film “Mr. Hublot”, Shuhei Morita, director of the Oscar® nominated animated short film “Possessions”, Laurent Witz, co-director of the Oscar® nominated animated short film “Mr. Hublot”, Lauren MacMullen, co-directors of the Oscar® nominated animated short film “Get a Horse!” and Daniel Sousa, co-directors of the Oscar® nominated animated short film “Feral”  prior to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ “Oscar Celebrates: Shorts” event on Tuesday, February 25, 2014 at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.