Exactly one week from today, on Sunday February 28th, the 2016 Academy Awards will air on ABC. In preparation for the big show next week, this week the Rotoscopers will be celebrating the nominated animated shorts on the site with a series of reviews.
Why the nominated animated shorts you might wonder. Well, animated shorts are very much overlooked when it comes to the categories and nominees at the Academy Awards. Most people know the Disney and Pixar shorts, but that’s pretty much it. Worldwide a ton of animated shorts get produced every year and the thing about shorts is that the budget is lower, so they aren’t as risky to make as animated feature films as the stakes aren’t as high. This results in studios getting to experiment with story as well as animation techniques. There are a lot of animation fans who would like see more 2D animation, well perhaps you should look a little farther than the feature films that are being produced in the US and take a look at the fun, new and unique ways animation is utilized in some of these nominated shorts among others.
Every day of the week, starting tomorrow, we will review one of the nominated shorts on the site. Our writers will give their opinions on the shorts and hopefully you will have a better idea of these short films when they announce the winner of the Academy Award next week. Below you can find our review schedule:
Monday Feb. 22: Bear Story
Tuesday Feb. 23: Sanjay’s Super Team
Wednesday Feb. 24: World Of Tomorrow
Thursday Feb. 25: We Can’t Live Without Cosmos
Friday Feb. 26: Prologue
Besides these reviews, we will also have other posts and reviews, like a review of The Art of Sanjay’s Super Team, on the site this week in addition to a special episode of the Animation Addicts podcast dedicated to all the nominated shorts on Tuesday. We would of course love to hear your thoughts on these shorts, or at least the ones that you’ve already seen (or the ones that you want to see). So be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comment sections of the shorts to share your opinion on the short or why you would like to see it yourself.
The shorts were released in theaters last month, on January 29. If you weren’t able to catch one of those screenings in theaters, the nominated shorts will also be available for digital purchase on iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Video, Vimeo on Demand among others Wednesday February 23rd.
