The Animated Life: Lost and Found | New York Times Video

The Animated Life: Lost and Found | New York Times Video

Here's Veryshortlist.com's take:

Last week, the New York Times (finally) did away with TimesSelect, allowing all readers of its Website to have access to everything on nytimes.com free of charge. There are some previously hidden gems to unearth, including artist/filmmaker Jeff Scher’s series “The Animated Life,” which contains his short film Lost and Found.

Created from more than 2,000 watercolor paintings and drawings in a style he calls “psychadelichrome,” Scher’s film — which clocks in at just under three minutes — is a joyful, intensely dense jumble of colorful and surreal chaos. Cats, fish, elephants, and charging bulls share the screen with people involved in varied fantastical whimsy. Scher describes the short as a valentine to his favorite early animators (enhanced by Shay Lynch’s bouncy musical score), and it allows us to remember a time (pre-Pixar) when the medium pushed past realism’s pesky boundaries.