Animated Film Short: The Good, The Bad, and The Stupid

With the animation and editing help of my friend Dave Berry (with Skypad Productions), I was able to bring to life my concept 2 minute animated spoof of Sergio Leone's "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly." Remember the scene at the grave yard, where Clint Eastwood has a showdown with the bad guy and the ugly guy? The scene goes on forever, with no words, only the camera panning back and forth between the faces, arms and legs of the three gunslingers. Classic scene. Well, in the animated version, we re-create the scene, only I added a Yul Brunner look-alike dressed in black, for the bad guy, and a cartoon cowboy for the ugly guy. The ugly guy tries everything in his holster to blow Clint away, but to no avail. Finally in frustration with the director doing the continual shots between the three, Clint blows the director guy away. A little joke to my indie film director associates in IFC (Independent Film Coalition), as the director character has an IFC shirt on. It takes a looooonnnnng time to animate, so we didn't capture all the visual gags we wanted, but it was a nice directorial debut entry for me in the "Kansas International Film Festival" in October, 2005. The animated competition was called "Between the Lines". They give you the first line "Why do our conversations always begin like this", and the last line "I bet you didn't see that coming" and then as the filmmaker, we had to decide what to fill in between. So as the voice of Clint Eastwood, I have Clint give those two lines and then since these cowboys were the quiet type, I have nothing said in-between those two lines, only the classic representation of the camera shots.