The Rauch Brothers for Mother's Day

Listening is an Act of Love

Storycorps presents it's first half hour special, animated by the Rauch brothers.  It will air on PBS stations on Thanksgiving night, but check your local listings.  From what I can see, the Buffalo affiliate, WNED, will not be running this, so Toronto is out of luck.

Greg Kelly has pointed out to me that starting November 29 until December 28, the special will be online at PBS, so everyone will get a chance to see it.  Thanks Greg.

A New StoryCorps Short by the Rauch Brothers

There's not a lot of contemporary animation that I look forward to, but I'm always excited to see a new short by the Rauch brothers.  So much of contemporary animation is devoid of real human feeling and emotion.  It relies on dramatic and comic clichés and the dialogue is straight from sitcoms.   It is refreshing to see some animation, like the above, built on genuine human experience.

I have no idea if these shorts are creating any ripples within the animation community, but they should be.  The Rauch brothers are pointing in a direction that animation needs to go, and it doesn't need $150 million budgets to get there.  All it needs is truth and taste, two things that should be in good supply and that won't break the bank.

This short is one of four new Rauch brothers shorts that will be included in the November 28 POV special on PBS.  I look forward to them all.

You can see all of the Rauch brothers shorts for StoryCorps here.

Facundo the Great

Here's another Storycorps short animated by the Rauch Brothers. Storycorps is raising money through Kickstarter to do a half hour special.  The goal is only $25,000, so I don't know if the money is to simply top up a budget or if they're going to do a slight amount of new animation to wrap around the work they've already done.

In any case, I'm a fan of their work and look forward to them doing more.

The Rauch Brothers Interviewed

Left to right: Mike and Tim Rauch.

"The key is to try and be as honest and true to the story as possible."
- Mike Rauch

I admire the work of the Rauch brothers enormously as their work, based on documentary audio recordings done by Storycorps, is built on emotional truth. That's something too often lacking in modern animation.

The brothers are interviewed by Jeremy Helton, talking about their history, their influences and their process. There are also photo comparisons between real people and settings and the designs that the brothers have created from them.

You can see four video interviews with the brothers here and a selection of their work here.

She Was the One

Another Storycorps film from the Rauch Brothers.

Miss Devine

The Rauch Brothers' latest short combines documentary audio of grown children remembering their Sunday school teacher with animation designed by Bill Wray.

I love this kind of work, mixing real life events with animation. All of the Rauch Brothers' work for Storycorps can be seen here and all of it is worth watching.

Germans in the Woods

Germans in the Woods from Rauch Brothers on Vimeo.

In time for Veterans Day (in Canada, called Remembrance Day), here is a film from the Rauch Brothers. Quoting from an email I received from Mike Rauch:

In honor of tomorrow, Veterans Day, Rauch Brothers Animation has posted "Germans in the Woods" to the web. In this animated documentary, 86-year-old World War II veteran Joseph Robertson remembers a German soldier he killed at the Battle of the Bulge. Produced in collaboration with national oral history project StoryCorps. Created with pencil on paper, Photoshop, and AfterEffects.

I think one of the more interesting developments in animation has been the creation of animated documentaries. Animators routinely interpret audio tracks, looking to find the emotional core of a person's speech. Shifting that skill from fictional to real dialogue extends what animators do while providing an opportunity to visualize events beyond the reach of a camera.

I'd like to thank Mike and Tim Rauch for the opportunity to share this film.