Best Short Subjects Highlight: Ben and Me (1953)

So as you might have figured out by now, there are three short categories. Best Animated Short is the one we've been focusing on for the past year, and it's been the most stable since the introduction of the short categories in 1932. The only changes is in the name, which was Best Short Subjects (Cartoons) for almost 40 years before changing to Best Short Subjects (Animated) to the current Best Short Films (Animated). The second is Best Documentary Short, which has also been stable since the introduction of the documentary categories in 1941, although there have been some confusion between this and the third category: Best Live Action Short.

The Best Live Action Short has undergone the most changes over the year. In fact, it's only been known as Best Live Action Short since 1957. It debuted in 1932 as two separate categories: Best Short Subjects (Comedy) and Best Short Subjects (Novelty.) In 1936 they decided to change the category into One-Reel and Two-Reel, meaning they will be competing with films of about the same length. I don't have the rules for the categories back then, but I don't presume that they actually have anything ruling out having animated films compete in these Short Subjects categories like they do nowadays. How else can we explain the presence of Ben and Me, a film animated in the traditional style, in the category that would become Best Live Action Short in four years time?

Best Live Action Short Highlight: Pas de Deux (1968)

Pas de Deux was a film that was nominated in the Best Live Action Short category, and I decided to skip writing about it back in October because for one reason I was struggling to keep my queue up, and for another reason I didn't really think it was animated. Why, the question even came up in the Canadian module of my History of Animation course, and I argued that it was live action. However, while doing some research about A Chairy Tale I found that Norman McLaren won a BAFTA award for Pas de Deux in the Best Animated Film category! Then it hit me. Who gives a buck about what I feel? My opinions are more worthless than the garbage you threw away a few days ago (which makes it kind of dubious as to why you're reading this in the first place.) I may not be as much of a fan of the BAFTA awards as the Oscars, but if they say Pas de Deux is an animated film then by golly we're going to review it like it's an animated film, which means it's going to be another highlight post. Yes, after going what seems like ages without a Saturday post, we're having our fourth Saturday post in a row, and we're not closed to finished yet.

Best Live Action Short Highlights - A Chairy Tale (1957)

So I was so eager in getting the Non-Nominated Highlight up for What's Opera, Doc? after the 1957 review that I plum forgot that 1957 also had one of the strangest nominations in the history of the shorts category: an animated film getting nominated for the Live Action Short category. Of course, there's no rule that absolutely says I have to post one of these highlights in the year where the film was made. I just chose to do so*.

*However, there was an animated documentary that was nominated for the Best Documentary Short category back in 1991, but I never posted about it because it wasn't online. Of course it's online now so I'll have some catching up to do after this.

Anyways, back to the topic at hand. How is it possible that an animated film gets nominated in the Live Action Short category? The answer lies in one of the most interesting of animation techniques: Pixilation