Quick Takes

“Quick Takes” is made up of 10 stop motion animations each 15 seconds long. Back in May of 2019 I came across a number of film festivals pushing 15 second films with no cost submissions. As someone who has run a festival I can tell you that short films are a blessing when programming film blocks. In years gone by festivals were giving free submission to 1 minute films, most likely for the same reason. I did a number of them. But the difference between a 1 minute film and a 15 second film in terms of pure storytelling are quite marked. There is still some room for fat in a 1 minute film. Not so with a 15 second film. The story becomes king and everything else must be trimmed of all excess fat. Some of the animations were created as 15 second films. A large number of the animations in "Quick Takes" were cut down from much longer works to fit into the 15 second format. Most of them work just fine telling the story in a lot less time. Which says a lot about extra story padding. But one or two of the animations I cut down are a little problematic as 15 second films. These too taught a lesson. The 15 second challenge has been a great learning experience and has been the most truly eye opening event to have an effect on my style and timing since I recreated scene 52 from Bill Plympton’s Oscar nominated “Guard Dog” animation from his original x-sheets and sound track for his global dog jam.