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A lot of of these short animated movies have a funny approach on the situations presented but you will also see some dramatic short videos.
It will take you some to watch them all so I’m suggesting you to bookmark the article.
I’ve watched all of these good animation movies and I was astonished by their authors’ creativity and exemplar execution.
This article has two main parts. If you want to jump to a specific section, click on one of the links below:
Best Short Animated Films
How to Create an Animated Short Movie
A look at the best short animated films
Sam | The Short Animated Movie
Sam, a shy young man, finds himself in a slow-motion world. Trying to restore the time, he fails. The circumstances bring him to rescue his coworkers, and Nathalie, the girl he secretly loves.
Click to download a PDF with 100 free fonts to help you create better designs.
Directed by Payetaprod Studio, a french team composed of Mickael Bonfill, Romain Protet, and Emmanuel Aurengo.
“Spellbound Short Film” by Ying Wu & Lizzia Xu
“Spell Bound” is an animated short film about a lonely girl, Rene, who is jealous of her perfect sister Sunny but must save her after writing negative thoughts in her diary that unexpectedly transform into monsters.
CGI Animated Short Film download from vidmate
CGI Animated Short Film “Wakan Short Film” by ISART DIGITALWhen the sun sets on a small native American village in the middle of a forest, two children, Aiyanna and her brother, Tawa, are playing hide and seek.
From the edge of the village, the young girl is lured away by a furtive blue light into the mystical forest. To save his sister, Tawa must venture deep into the heart of the spirit world
“A Fox And A Mouse” – by ESMA
Click to download a PDF with 74 icon sets containing more than 1000 free icons.
Watch this beautiful and touching award-winning 3D animated short called “A Fox And A Mouse” as a lonesome fox hunts a mouse – and their relationship evolves as two owls begin to interfere with the hunt!
“Dustin” – by The Dustin Team
Enjoy this cute award winning CGI 3D Animated short film – “Dustin” is an animated comedy about a pug who, much to his chagrin, has to arrange with an automatic cleaning robot as his new roommate. Created by the talented hands and minds of Michael Fritzsche, Kristina Jaeger, Andreas Tetz & Nadine Utz Produced in Germany 2014!
“Take Me Home” – by Nair Archawattana
Watch this touching animated short film In a cold, dark dog shelter, a young beagle is waiting for the right one to take him home. Time passes by, the beagle is getting desperate.
Until one day, when hope finally shine upon him. He has to do everything he can to leave the place! For more information, please see the details and links below.
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“Take Me Home” is an animated short film created and directed by Nair Archawattana, with a collaboration of talented students at Academy of Arts University.
Dust Buddies Short Film” by Beth Tomashek & Sam Wade
CGI Animated Dust Buddies Short Film by Beth Tomashek & Sam Wade from Ringling college of art and design.
Dust Buddies is a story about the friendship between two dust bunnies, Fuzz and Lint, who live peacefully under a couch. When an evil maid comes to clean the house and sucks Fuzz into her vacuum, Lint must overcome his fears and set out to rescue his friend.
“The Controller Short Film” by Bob Yong, Kang Yung Ho, Ian Ie
CGI Animated The Controller Short Film by Bob Yong, Kang Yung Ho, Ian Ie from Ringling college of art and design.
Roles are reversed when a controlling mom is trapped in her son’s video game. Helpless, she now has to listen to him if she hopes to escape the unfamiliar game world.
“Last Shot Short Film” by Aemilia Widodo
CGI 3d Animated Last Shot Animated Short Film by Aemilia Widodo from Ringling College of Art and Design.
Just discovering the joys of photography, a girl ends up breaking her camera by accident.
Logorama
Logorama is a 16-minute animated film written and directed by H5/ François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy and Ludovic Houplain, and produced by Autour de Minuit.
The film depicts events in a stylized Los Angeles, and is told entirely through the use of more than 2,500 contemporary and historical logos and mascots. The film won the Prix Kodak at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 82nd Academy Awards.
Presto
Presto is a 2008 American Pixar computer-animated short film shown in theaters before their feature length film WALL-E.
The short is about a magician trying to perform a show with his uncooperative rabbit and is a gag-filled homage to classic cartoons such as Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes. Presto was directed by veteran Pixar animator Doug Sweetland, in his directorial debut.
Oktapodi
Oktapodi is a 2007 French computer-animated short film that originated as a Graduate Student Project from Gobelins L’Ecole de L’Image.
The short is about a pair of love struck octopuses who through a series of comical events are separated and find each other. Oktapodi was directed by Julien Bocabeille, François-Xavier Chanioux, Olivier Delabarre, Thierry Marchand, Quentin Marmier, and Emud Mokhberi. Music was composed by Kenny Wood.
Oktapodi was well received, winning a number of awards, as well as an Oscar nomination for Best Short Film (Animated) for the 81st Academy Awards.
Invasions
They may steal our cows and take over our cats, but Clement Morin’s animated short film, Invasions, shows that alien dudes do things for the exact same reason that human dudes do.
The lady and the reaper
The Lady and the Reaper is a 3D imaging animated short film created by Javier Recio Gracia and produced by Kandor Graphics. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and won the Goya Award for Best Animated Short of 2009.
Replay
In a destroyed world, the only glimpse of hope is the memory of a forgotten past. But be careful not to let your dreams control your mind. This is Replay an amazing animated short film.
The setting is an apocalyptic world caused by who knows what where two siblings are surviving in some underground cabin. Outside, there is doom and destruction everywhere – they even have to wear oxygen masks while going out because of the polluted air!
One day, the older of the two siblings, Lana finds something that’s going to change their lives forever! And now I shall shut up about the story – you will have to watch it yourselves :).
French Roast
French Roast is an animated short created by Fabrice O. Joubert. It is Joubert’s first short film.
In a fancy Parisian Café c. 1960, an uptight businessman discovers he forgot to bring his wallet and bides his time by ordering more coffee. He constantly turns away a homeless man who asks him for money, but in the end, due to a curious turn of events, it is the homeless man who is unselfish enough to pay the businessman’s bill thus saving him from embarrassment.
Cathedral
The Cathedral is the title of a science fiction short story by Jacek Dukaj, winner of the Janusz A. Zajdel Award in 2000; and of a 2002 short animated movie by Tomasz Bagiński, based on the story.
The film was nominated in 2002 for the Academy Award for Animated Short Film for the 75th Academy Awards. The movie won the title of Best Animated Short at Siggraph 2002 in San Antonio as well as several other awards.
Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty
Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty is a six-minute-long CG/flash animated socially satirical black comedy short film, directed by Nicky Phelan and produced by Darragh O’Connell of Brown Bag Films in 2008.
It was written by Kathleen O’Rourke. The plot centres on Granny O’Grimm, a seemingly sweet old lady, who loses the plotline as she tells her own version of Sleeping Beauty to her terrified granddaughter.
This Way Up
Laying the dead to rest has never been so much trouble.
This Oscar Nominated short is directed by Smith & Foulkes and written by Foulkes, Smith, and Christopher O’Reilly, and produced at Nexus by Charlotte Bavasso and Christopher O’Reilly, the film follows two dour unfortunates as they battle a series of misadventures while trying to deliver a coffin to the graveyard.
The animated caper is a series of emotional and literal pitfalls for the pall-bearing team, as their journey and relationship unravel on an epic scale culminating in the pair joining the old lady in a trip through the underworld.
‘This Way Up’, was nominated for an Oscar® for best animated short at the 81st annual Academy Awards.
Before its Oscar win, “This Way Up” won numerous awards at film festivals around the world, including an Official Selection at the Sundance Film Festival, the Public Prize for Best Short Film at the 2008 Ottawa Animation Festival, the Audience Award for Animated Short at both the Palm Springs International Film Festival, and the Mundos Digitales in Spain.
This is proof that is one of the amazing animated short films of our time.
Even Pigeons Go To Heaven
Even Pigeons Go To Heaven is one of the best animated shorts directed by Samuel Tourneux and released in 2007. It was nominated for the 2007 Academy Award for best animated short film.
Madame Tutli-Putli
Madame Tutli-Putli is a 2007 Academy Award nominated stop motion-animated short film by Montreal filmmakers Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). It is available on the Cinema16: World Short Films DVD as well as from the NFB.
Lifted
Lifted is a 2006 Pixar computer-animated short film directed by Gary Rydstrom. This is the first film directed by Rydstrom, a seven-time Academy Award winning sound editor and mixer.
No Time for Nuts
No Time for Nuts is a computer animated short film from Blue Sky Studios (20th Century Fox Animation), starring Scrat of Ice Age fame, premiering on the DVD release of Ice Age: The Meltdown, much in the same vein as Gone Nutty on the previous movie’s DVD release.
It was nominated for an Oscar “Best Short Film, Animated” in 2007, though it never received a billing with a Fox feature film. It also won “Best Animated Short Subject” at the Annie Awards.
One Man Band
One Man Band is a 2005 Pixar animated short film. The film made its world premiere at the 29th Annecy International Animated Film Festival in Annecy, France, and won the Platinum Grand Prize at the Future Film Festival in Bologna, Italy. It was shown with the theatrical release of Cars.
The short was written and directed by Andrew Jimenez and Mark Andrews and produced by Osnat Shurer, head of Pixar’s Shorts group. The score for the short was written by Michael Giacchino, who also composed the scores for Pixar’s animated feature films The Incredibles, Ratatouille and Up.
Artificial Paradise, Inc
Artificial Paradise, Inc is an experimental film anticipating a future where a major corporation has developed an unique software, based on organic virtual reality, which holds all the lost memories of humankind. A user connects to this database of the forgotten…what is he searching for?
The Monk & The Monkey
A determined young boy, Ragu, is sent by his master on his final quest to become a monk. A seemingly simple task becomes an unexpected challenge for Ragu as he discovers the real value of his quest.
Created by Brendan Carroll & Francesco Giroldini
Music by Erez Koskas
Something Left, Something Taken
An animated dark comedy about a vacationing couple’s encounter with a man they believe to be the Zodiac Killer. Based on a true story. Techniques and tools: After Effects, Stop-Motion, Pixilation, Drawn on Paper, Flash, Live Action puppets
Direction/Animation/Design/Writing: Max Porter & Ru Kuwahata
Sound Design/Mix:Greg Sextro (East West Audio)
Voice recording: Erin Kilkenny
The Raven
This movie is not fully animated so take it as an exception for this article. I’ve included it because it has some damn good effects.
Chris Black possesses a power that could lead to the destruction of the current regime, and they will stop at nothing to destroy him.
The chase is on as Chris runs for his life in this sci-fi thriller set in an alternate and futuristic Los Angeles.
Director : Ricardo de Montreuil
Producers: Ricardo de Montreuil & Eliz Eskeranli
Writers: Ricardo de Montreuil & Antonio Perez
Cinematographer: Andres Sanchez
Music by: Angelo Milli
Special Effects Supervisor: Aaron Burns
3D Modeling and Animation: Juan Somarriba and Francisco Concha
Visual Effects and Compositing: Ricardo de Montreuil
Editing: Ricardo de Montreuil
Color Correction: Santiago Padilla
Sound Design and Mixing: Martin Seltzer
Budget: $5k
Format: RED 1920×1080
Special thanks: Filmosonido, CO3 and Converse
Descendants
Heiko van der Scherm – Writer, Director, Design, Modeling
Bernhard Haux – Character TD Flower main actors
Goro Fujita – Supervising Animator
Felix Graf – Animator
Holger Schönberger – Pipeline, Shading, Lighting, Compositing
How to Create an Animated Short Movie
Video production is something that isn’t at all easy, nor is it cheap.
Even if you have a short video for your website or YouTube channel, when addressed to a professional studio, might cost in the thousands.
There are, however, free, or low-cost alternatives that any web user can master. One of the options is a self-made short animated film.
You will find animation ideas anywhere on the internet, especially if you’re looking for short animation ideas. There are a few things to know about short animated films, let’s take a look.
Figure out the story you’re telling
Yes, you need a story, and a good one at that. Coming up with a story idea for a short animated movie when you’re looking at how to make an animated movie might be hard, but there are ways to make it easier.
The problem is that when you’re looking at an empty, white page, you often freak out and go blank. This is because the thought of being able to do anything is a bit scary, and may push you into not doing anything. This is where the Restriction Method comes into play.
The Restriction Method
The Restriction Method is exactly how it sounds like. People love restrictions, and need them.
This is, in a nutshell, “draw a tree, but use only triangles”. This leads to more creativity on your side than just “draw a tree”. When you restrict yourself, you’ll come up with things you would never have come up with otherwise.
Turn an idea into words
So, you have an idea for your animation story, but until you write it down in a script form, you have no way of knowing whether it works.
Actually transferring what you think, into a story on paper, is one of the absolutely hardest steps in the movie making process. People often avoid writing the script as long as possible. However, writing the script early on will help you spot issues like:
Bad pacing
Loopholes in the story
No character development
And, you also have a physical form of the story, which you can share with people. This gives you feedback, which, as you’ll come to learn, is priceless.
The script format
A script actually has three main elements:
The location
The action
The dialogue
The location
The location is usually declared at the beginning of each scene. This is done in the following format:
Interior or exterior?
A description of the location
Is it daytime, or nighttime?
The action
This is where you describe what action precedes, or follows the dialogue. It is usually written without indentation, at the script’s body.
The dialogue
Indented to the page’s center, you should write the character’s name with capital letters, and put the dialogue’s lines under it, also indented.
What is an animatic?
animatic 30 Of The Best Short Animated Films
An animatic is actually an animated storyboard, commonly used for animation stories. You put them in an animation software, or video creation software, and cut together with the pace of the film and correct timing. They come with dialogue recordings, basic sound effects, and scratch soundtrack.
What is an animatic used for?
Just like a storyboard, you use an animatic to pre-visualize the film before you begin the production and the animation process.
They’re very important for making short animated movies, as you can see how the movie might look like for the first time, and get a good sense of the rhythm, pacing, and the progression of your film.
And, it’s the last step before you go into the 3D animation pipeline, so you want to make sure that you no longer have any story changes to make.
What software to use to create short animated films?
The most popular software for animatics is Adobe After Effects. It’s great for:
Adding elements to the view screen, like time-codes or a frame count
Manipulating the drawings with the puppet tool if needed
Exporting in plenty of codecs and formats
Layouts and model sheets
Once you have an approved storyboard, it’s sent to the layout department. They, in turn, work closely with the director in order to design the costumes and locations. When this is done, staging the scenes begins, and the various characters’ positions are shown throughout the course of each shot.
Model sheets are actually very precisely drawn groups of pictures that will show you the poses and expressions a character could make. They’re made in order to maintain the detail of the character, and keep the character’s design uniform while animators are working on them across the shots.
It is during this stage that the character’s designs are finalized, and their blueprints can be sent to the modeling department when the production starts. That department then creates the final character models.
Creating the background layout
MDS03 30 Of The Best Short Animated Films
This is an essential part of how to make an animated video, and begins when you have a story and good animatics.
Let’s begin.
You can start with drawing them in the correct field size, based on your field guides. And, since you know what the background looks like already, draw only what is in the shot. For example, if you’re only using a piece of table, you don’t have to draw an entire room.
And, if you’re going to be re-using the background later on in a different field size, just use a bigger-sized background when you’re drawing, so you don’t lose pixels and still get to use it for both.
A quick tip: If you decided you want a close-up in the beginning, but change your mind to a mid-shot later on, you will need to move the camera in order to get the shot you want when making an animated movie.
This is when cam keys come in very handy, as they show the field size you’re using for each scene.
Modelling
Modelling 30 Of The Best Short Animated Films
When you’re looking at how to make animated videos, you’ll find that modelers tend to be split into two, or more, departments.
For example, organic modelers come with a sculpture background, and specialize in building characters and other freeform surfaces.
However, hard-surface modelers will come from an architectural background and can model vehicles, props, buildings etc.
Modelers will turn the 2D concept art and maquettes into a high-detail 3D model which is topologically sound.
This is done in cooperation with the art directors, animation supervisors and visual effects supervisors.
The modelers afterwards also assist the technical animator and enveloper as the skeleton and skin are developed for the model.
When all this is done, the model is usually given back to the modeler for finishing touches, such as facial expressions or any muscle tension or jiggle shapes that might be necessary.
Once the model is done and approved, it’s made available to the rigging and the texture paint departments, who prepare the model for animation and rendering, passing it through the final stages.
If all things are well, the model will move through the pipeline without coming back for fixes, although some fixes are usually inevitable, such as the problems that come up when the lighter gets his hand on the model.
Texturing
Games-Hero-module-1920x1080 30 Of The Best Short Animated Films
Regardless of whether you’re making a texture from scratch, or through simply editing an existing image, a texturing artist is the one responsible for writing shaders, and painting the textures according to the scene’s requirements.
Textures are painted in order to match the approved designs, working hand in hand with both the surfacing, and the shading departments. These textures are usually created in the form of maps, and they’re then assigned to the model.
Lighting in short animated films
maxresdefault-1 30 Of The Best Short Animated Films
A lighting artist doesn’t only have to think about lighting all the individual scenes, but they should also consider how all of the elements that the other departments created will come together.
Lighting TDs usually combine the latest version of the animation, camera moves, effects, textures and shaders, and render an updated version on a daily basis.
Lighters actually have a lot of responsibilities, such as defining light properties, placing lights, as well as defining how the light will interact with the different materials and textures, and color theory and harmony.
They will need to establish lighting and shadows, both direct and reflected, for each shot, making sure it fits within the sequence’s continuity, and all of that while making sure they fulfill the vision of the production designers, VFX supervisors, art directors, and most importantly, the director.
Rigging
The process of adding bones to the characters, and defining the mechanical objects’ movements, is known as rigging, and is essential to the animation process.
A character TD makes test animations that show how a character or creature will appear when deformed into various poses, and based on those results, there are often corrective adjustments.
The rigging department usually is also involved in developing the cloth simulation as well, so they won’t only need to make the character clench his or her fist, or rotate an arm, but their costume should follow suite as well, in a believable manner.
Animation
The practice of planning a character’s performance, frame by frame, is usually applied in 3D with the same basic aesthetic judgements and basic principles that were originally developed for stop-motion animation and 2D.
If you have motion capture in order to digitize a real actor’s movements, a lot of the animator’s time will go in cleaning up the motion captured performance, as well as completing the portions that maybe weren’t digitized during the process.
Elements such as dust, water, smoke and explosions are also produced by the effects team, but the development on these aspects doesn’t really start until the final lighting and animation has been approved, since they’re actually integral to the final shot, as well as being computationally heavy pretty often.
Sound editing
This is the department that’s responsible for selecting, as well as assembling the sound recordings when preparing for the final sound mix, making sure that lip sync is okay, and adding all sound effects that are required for the final film.
Compositing a short animated film
This departments brings together all those 3D elements that the previous departments produced, and creates the final rendered image, ready for film.
Compositors will take the rendered images from lighters, and may also start with compositing scripts that are developed by TDs, in order to get a daily working version of the shot.
General tasks include painting fixes, rendering passes that are delivered by the lighting department to form the final shot, as well as rotoscoping (although the compositors often rely on mattes that are made by a separate, dedicated rotoscoping department), and compositing FX elements and color grading.
Video editing a short animated film
Video editing is actually the process where all shots are manipulated and rearranged, and you get a seamless final product.
This is where any unwanted scenes or footage are removed. This is a crucial step in making sure that the video and its flow actually achieve the initial goal.
There are other tasks that may also include titling, as well as adding effects to the final video or text.
Post-production
This refers to things that have to be made after shooting or filming ends.
These things include editing the raw footage to cut the scenes together, as well as inserting transitional effects, and working with voice and sound actors and dubbing, just to name a few.
However, overall, the three main phases of post-production are compositing, sound editing, and video editing.
Animated video makers: pros and cons
Animated videos, as described above, are illustrations that exist in a purely fictional world.
There are no actors, no set, and no stages, but this doesn’t, in any way, prevent them from telling a great story.
Animated cartoons are also pretty frequent on YouTube, because anyone can make them with a design template and online tools, and these templates often come with characters, voices, music and sound effects, as well as some much-needed scenery.
And, you can even cartoonize yourself. Anyone can just tailor the styles available for their own needs.
So, you don’t really have to get a professional studio to do all the things we discussed above, but you can do things with an online cartoon maker. They’re easy to use, and will undoubtedly save you a lot of time, as well as money. Here are some of the advantages they provide:
You don’t need to dub videos
The animation templates look professional
The templates are usually done in high resolution
The pricing plans are pretty scalable
Characters tend to look engaging and funny
However, there are a few disadvantages as well:
The more difficult the template, the more expensive it is
Going beyond the designed scenery isn’t usually possible
You will need to re-adjust your video’s plot to the possibilities of the template
The learning curve might be complicated for some
Now, there’s also plenty of software you can choose from, but let’s take a look at Animation Mentor, and a few tips for it.
The “>” and “<” keys make a flipbook
These are tips that will become obvious over time, but the ability to use the < and > keys in order to flip the animation like a flipbook is one of the essentials.
Sure, one of the lessons will undoubtedly mention this, but once you start to view your animation like that, you’ll find that going from blocking, to splined, is a lot more predictable.
And, you should make sure you put in all your breakdowns, things such as ease ins and outs. To ease the transition from blocking to splined you can use overshoots and settles within the blocking.
You can quickly scrub through your footage
In order to get your main poses, as well as identify what is important from the reference quicker, this helps a lot.
You may be framing through the reference, or scrubbing slowly because you think that slower lets you understand better.
However, scrubbing quickly won’t let your eye pick up on all the subtle stuff, letting you focus on important things, such as which poses are more clear, and where the main change of weight is.
Sometimes too many shots can be a good thing
This isn’t that much of a tip, but instead something that you will notice. When you have a lot of shots to go through, you can’t get hung up on animations that aren’t great. Base your rule of thumb on two questions:
Will the general audience understand what you want to say with the animation?
Is the animation not too jarring, and distracting to the audience?
If you can answer these with a yes, it’s good enough.
This might not be the best thing to do when working to the highest standard, but if you have a schedule to stick to, this will let you create plenty of animations while sticking to it.
And, your animation will get a lot better, a lot quicker, than if you spend ages trying to get that one shot and make it perfect.
Taking a break does help
Taking a break is a great thing to do. However, as deadlines approach, you’ll find yourself getting frustrated, either with how you’re going to achieve the shot, or just getting that animation to look right.
You may be tempted to keep at it, and just take that break later on.
However, if you just sit back, relax, and actually do take that our break, you’ll find that when you come back to work, you’ll be much more open minded, and you’ll be able to tackle your problem much faster, instead of just sitting there and sweating it out.
One more thing: Don’t, just don’t give up
You’ll find that a lot of times, you just can’t see that light at the end of the tunnel, you can’t get the shot right, like you want it.
Just keep pushing at it, try breaking it into chunks, and tackling each bit on its own.
Animation software for short animated films
Oftentimes, people wonder what kind of software others use for 3D animation.
There are a couple of options, we’ll take a look at them below. However, it is important to know that good skills will actually get you pretty far regardless of the software you use.
Tools will always be just that, tools. And, we won’t be including every software out there, just the best of the best.
3D animation
Autodesk Maya
Autodesk-Maya 30 Of The Best Short Animated Films
Maya is what is used in most studios, the industry standard.
It, along with the discontinued Softimage, as well as 3D Max, all belong to Autodesk, and 3D Max and Maya work very similarly. Choose one according to personal preference.
3ds Max
Autodesk-3DS-Max 30 Of The Best Short Animated Films
3ds Max will give you a comprehensive solution for 3D modeling, as well as animation and rendering, for anything from films, motion graphics and games. Creating massive worlds and scenes in a quick and efficient manner is now very easy, and you have the most robust rendering and animation tools at your disposal.
Cinema 4D
Cinema-4D 30 Of The Best Short Animated Films
Cinema 4D is the best friend of a motion graphics artist.
It is a 3D program ideal for an AfterEffects user, and works with it directly, without needing to render first.
For a serious 3D film production, it isn’t the most obvious choice, since it’s made with motion graphics in mind, but it is actually amazing, and quite versatile as well.
Blender
Blender 30 Of The Best Short Animated Films
Blender is free and open source.
It gives you a lot of functionality, from texturing, modeling, animation, lighting, and even video post-processing, in a single package.
You also get cross-platform operability, as well as a very small footprint and a workflow that’s tightly integrated.
2D animation
Adobe Animate
Adobe-Animate 30 Of The Best Short Animated Films
Most likely the most popular choice, it has a long lineage of animations, from the early days of internet video publishing.
It is vector based, and, just like most of Adobes’ programs, very intuitive to use, as well as inexpensive.
For getting started with 2D animation, is great, but unlike other tools such as Toon Boom Harmony (more on it below), it isn’t all that good for professional animation production, although you could get amazing results with it.
Adobe After Effects
Adobe-After-Effects 30 Of The Best Short Animated Films
This is an interesting choice for 2D, but you do get a lot of control when you want to create rigs for 2D, and the built-in puppet tool is actually very intuitive and convenient.
If you’re already comfortable with Adobe and the environment, it’s a great choice.
And, since it is an editing software, you can also edit, and color correct, in the same place you animate. Sure, this isn’t the traditional way a pipeline works, but it will save some time.
Toon Boom Harmony
Toon-Boom-Harmony 30 Of The Best Short Animated Films
Toon Boom actually has a very friendly set of animation programs that have a lot of advanced effects, rigging systems and camera tools.
It’s vector based, but you also get an option for bitmap drawing in the advanced version. For different prices, there are different packages.
You can choose between Harmony Essentials, Harmony Advanced, and Harmony Premium, but for a hobbyist, the Essentials package should get the job done at a decent price.
TVPaint
TWPaint 30 Of The Best Short Animated Films
TVPaint is an all-in-one 2D software, the only one you’ll ever need. Much more complex, and much more robust than Photoshop, but it is also priced higher. This is a good choice for studios and professional animators.
Photoshop
maxresdefault 30 Of The Best Short Animated Films
Often overlooked when you’re after an animation software, Photoshop is actually a great choice if you want to go Disney-style, and animate frame by frame.
The timeline functionality will let you animate frame by frame with onion skinning, and it’s pretty robust and versatile.
Moho (Anime Studio)
moho 30 Of The Best Short Animated Films
This is a complete 2D package that can get you anything from a traditional animation, to a cutout animation and an anime style animation.
You get a complex bone system you can use for rigging, and there’s also support for the Unity engine.
The Debut is more than enough for beginners and hobbyists, but professionals will benefit from the advanced tools offered in the Pro package.
Stop-motion software
Dragonframe
Dragonframe 30 Of The Best Short Animated Films
If you want to make a professional stop motion video, Dragonframe is the tool for the job. You can use the comprehensive software with a lot of different attachments, like a camera controlling device, pull focus, and lights.
You get complete control over the shot’s lighting, and an option to program the lights’ dimming over a period of time. You also get a keypad controller to make the whole photo taking, and frame flipping process very easy. This is the industry standard as far as stop-motion animation goes, and films such as Shaun the Sheep, and Kubo and the Two Strings made very good use of it.
iStopMotion
iStopMotion 30 Of The Best Short Animated Films
If you’d rather keep stop-motion as a hobby, and don’t want to spend a lot, this is the right thing for you.
It, however, also has a few pro features such as onion skinning, DSLR support, and using an iPhone or iPad for a remote, as well as chroma keying.
Ending thoughts on creating short animated films
What you’ll find above, from the detailed production pipeline, to the tips and software available, is not what you’ll find everywhere.
Even though the pipeline is pretty common, studios are very likely to determine a custom pipeline according to their current project.
A 2D production pipeline will start with a workbook, and get to final checking and film output, while a 3D project will emphasize design, modeling, rigging, and animation.
The whole animation process is actually a very coordinated process, and you have a lot of teams of artists that all work together in order to make use of optimum resources, and achieve the initial goal in the available time.
If you liked this article with the best animated short films, you should check out these as well:
Free stock footage sites to download videos from
Amazing Adobe After Effects Tutorials You Need To Watch
Academy Awards’ Short Film Nominees
The short films that the Academy awarded over time with an oscar and the nominees from those years
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Bogdan Sandu
Bogdan is a designer and editor at DesignYourWay. He's reading design books the same way a hamster eats carrots, and talks all the time about trends, best practices and design principles.
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