Actor's Day

It's amazing what a little hype can do for a movie, but more amazing what it can do to a movie. The now legendary polarized reception of JDR Revival stemmed not from its content (though I must confess that repeat viewings have revealed to some degree the dazed misdirection in the movie's narrative that Jon talked about), but from the fact that a few incredibly enthusiastic early viewers couldn't stop talking about it. Dan's boundless energy and smartass enthusiasm infects all of his work, and comes across in an imbalanced but highly entertaining way; when you 'get it', you REALLY get it, and it's hard not to get giddy about it. But when you go in irritated about the gushing fans and expecting the movie to be the most mesmerizing thing ever created, the flaws stand out in a big way. And so I turn your attention to Actor's Day, a short, endlessly inventive flick based in the 3DMM world itself, presented with absolutely no hype whatsoever.

The movie is built around an idea I pitched to Dan a while back about a story set within 3DMM's toolbox itself, documenting the events of a day in the lives of the default actors. The original concept was to show the viewpoint of each actor throughout the day, with each new perspective revealing something about a complex, interconnected sequence of events. For instance, on Augustin's day we might see him walking down the street and being hit by a car and killed. Then later, on Timothy's day, we find out that Timothy was driving the car and rushing to get to work. This would continue until the final actor's point of view was revealed, and the most important details of the story would become clear. Dan has gone a different route, however, one I must say is far more suited to his method of storytelling -- we shift from event to event like one of the multi-story Simpsons or Futurama episodes, and return to characters featured earlier when appropriate. The chronology is a straight line, but the camera has ADD and becomes distracted by something happening in the background of a scene, following it instead of what's happening in front of us.

Unfortunately, Actor's Day doesn't quite achieve the sort of living, breathing world it possibly could have. The frequent shifts in perspective become a bit jarring and while the story wraps up in a suitably appropriate way, it feels rather like a series of skits instead of an interconnected story. I found myself grinning in anticipation throughout the entire experience, but when it finished I had the distinct impression that there should have been more here. The events that occur make several humorous and intelligent observations about the program and crafts an amazingly creative world out of the various quirks and patterns from both the community and the program itself, to be sure, but I found myself wanting the stories to tie together in a more elaborate way. Because of this, Patrick's irritated observation at the end of the movie rings just a little bit too true, and it sounds as if he's referring to the implementation of all of these ideas instead of just his own little story.

Ah, well. It succeeds for what it does, and Dan has improved considerably not just in animation, but in pacing. Although at times it does feel like it's better paced for a longer film, he finally seems to have nailed the art of the introduction. JDR Revolutions dropped us into an rushed, unsteady establishment of its world, story, and characters, and Revival was no better with the hesitant stammering of the early Waumsely scenes, clumsily trying to find a narrative thread to grab onto and follow. Actor's Day's opening scenes are more elegantly crafted than Revolutions and much more confident than Revival, and proves effective at focusing our attention on each new character switch, though it's still possible to become lost when Dan flips from a more active character to a less active one. But when Patrick chases Jeremy through back alleys, diving through a period-style garbage can lid placed on a fence, in true Looney Tunes portable 'holes' style, and something happens with a familiar letter shape that I will not reveal, you know you're in good hands, and everything starts coming together wonderfully. The 80 Frames sequence (you'll know it when you see it) demonstrates some of the best comic timing in an action scene I've ever seen, and the last fifteen or so frames will make your jaw drop. The inspired moments that follow are so numerous and happen in such quick succession that it's kind of surreal.

Dan voices every character in the film, which is perfectly fine by me. Occasionally his vocal exaggerations can be a little grating, but on the whole he does a fine job and there are some truly funny lines. The scenery is top-notch and the music is standard Danimations-faire, which I suspect is picked by putting a bunch of random mp3s into a playlist and hitting the shuffle key. I mean this in a good way, as Dan's musical taste always seems to match his style of animating. And speaking of animation -- my god. Dan has an incredible talent for short bursts of the kind of onscreen activity that makes your eyes light up and look closely to make sure you actually just saw that -- and Actor's Day has the most of them strung in a row I've probably ever seen. While JDR Revival's runtime and periods of inaction muted the more inspired moments, Actor's Day is consistently entertaining, even if it ends a bit too quickly and doesn't do all it seemingly could.

And ultimately that's the biggest problem with the movie; Dan has served up a taste of a wonderfully brilliant concept, bringing a wide array of elements of the program together to create a relentlessly wacky short that could have been twice as long without losing even a bit of steam. Everything is just starting to come together and congeal into something amazing when it all comes to an abrupt, if excellent end. In a way, the film's conclusion kinda addresses this aspect of its plot. Sometimes it's just good to play around for a little bit, even if you're not going to save the file.

Critical Score: 80/100.
Personal Score: 75/100.