Almost 30 years ago, two-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker Don Hertzfeldt burst onto the scene with his clever stick-figure short, Ah, L’Amour. The indie helmer soon exceeded the promise of that short with a string of acclaimed projects that included Billy’s Balloon, Rejected, The Meaning of Life, Everything Will be OK, I Am So Proud of You, It’s Such a Beautiful Day and The World of Tomorrow trilogy.
Last year, he delivered yet another profound and fascinating new short titled ME which explores technology, narcissism and alienation. It centers on a peanut-shaped humanoid figure who becomes obsessed with an invention that changes his species’ relationship to time. And yes, there’s a pandemic and a militaristic government that ruins the public lives of everyone! We caught up with Hertzfeldt via email to find out more about ME, which is one of 15 titles shortlisted for a Best Animated Short Oscar earlier this month.
Animag: Congrats on the latest accolades for your timely short, which took over two years to finish. Can you tell us a bit about the inspirations behind ME?
Hertzfeldt: In the very beginning I really liked the idea of telling a story without dialogue. There always seems to be some sort of experiment going on here with every project and that in particular seemed really interesting, like going back to how silent films were staged. ME is totally driven by music so I got to thinking about how so many of my favorite songs, even songs I’ve listened to for most of my life, are actually a bit hard to describe to somebody. The lyrics to our favorite songs are often sort of mysterious. They might paint a little scene or conjure up different thoughts and memories, but you can’t always put your finger on a literal meaning. Music doesn’t need one. The lyrics might mean something completely different to me than it does to the next guy, which is kind of the point of most art. Maybe it’s what makes us want to play that song again, like wanting to reread a favorite poem.
Getting clear answers aren’t why we read poems or listen to music. So my question while writing was, how do you create that sort of feeling in a film? The sort of sense that the emotion of the thing, like music, is more important than maybe being able to describe whatever narrative it was you just saw: ”I can’t tell you why I like this so much, I just do.” And with ME an objective narrative is all in there — if you did want to logically plot it all out on a piece of paper, it’s possible to do but that obviously wasn’t really the point.
There were some issues with the original music you planned to use for the short. What happened?
Hertzfeldt: After the first year of animating, we suddenly lost the funding to the original project and had to remove all the music that had been in there. So the second year was spent restructuring the entire thing to new music, on a sort of rescue mission.
I love what you said earlier about the final version of your short: “It’s not a dog that’s missing a leg: It’s a dog that now has wings. I know dogs aren’t supposed to have wings, but this dog does, and somehow it works: They’re dog wings but they’re still wings. That’s all to say, this is not what anyone expected it was going to be from day one. and sometimes that’s for the best. Sometimes a movie has to take the really, really, really, long way around.”
Hertzfeldt: The overall story stayed more or less the same as I reanimated and recut everything, but I felt like now I was given the green light to just go get a lot more abstract and wild with it. This cut is a lot leaner and meaner.
How does it feel to be entering the madness of award season and be on the shortlist again this year?
Hertzfeldt: A bit vindicated, to be honest. It was for sure the most strange and difficult way I’ve ever brought a project to the finish line, this time limping and bleeding but stronger.
What do you think of the animation scene in 2024? Things have changed so much since you burst onto to the indie scene with your clever shorts. And yet, some things are still the same!
Hertzfeldt: All of our tools have changed and steadily become more miraculous since I was a kid, yet animation is still by and large really difficult, time-consuming, and annoying to create, which is kind of delightful. Not very much has actually changed since Winsor McCay famously refused to patent his early animation techniques, allegedly saying, “Any idiot that wants to make a couple of thousand drawings for a hundred feet of film is welcome to join the club.”
Of course, we have to ask you for some good advice for today’s animation newbies!
Hertzfeldt: I think the good and bad news is, audiences don’t care very much about what we do. Did it take me two years to animate something? The audience doesn’t care. They don’t particularly care about animation craft, technique or style, either. Audiences don’t even really care if your animation is especially beautiful and dazzling. They only reason they’re watching is because they want to feel something. Audiences care if you’re making them laugh or think. Audiences care if you’re being boring. They care if you don’t have anything new or interesting to say.
All my favorite animated short films in history are amazing films. They’re well written, with really great concepts. If your animated short is doing its job in all departments, the animation, like good editing or a good soundtrack, becomes pretty invisible because the audience is caught up in the story you’re telling. Everything we do has to be in service of something greater that’s being expressed or we’re just treading water. I’ve seen so many shorts where I feel like I’m just watching an animator wrestle around with themselves. It’s nice to see good animation in a short film, but it’s not nearly as important as writing, directing, sound, or editing.
Catch the trailer below:
You can watch ME and Don’s previous shorts here. Find out more about the filmmaker at bitterfilms.com.
