Boulder City festival is long on shorts

Thursday, Feb. 3, 2005 | 8:32 a.m.

Lee Lanier has shown his short films in more than 100 festivals around the world. He's worked as a senior animator on "Shrek" and on "Antz." He's worked with Walt Disney Studios and founded his own Boulder City-based company, BeezleBug Bit.

But frustration at the lack of attention given to short films inspired this Ohio-born animator to create a festival dedicated to short films: The Dam Short Film Festival, which runs Friday through Sunday in Boulder City.

The festival will feature more than 100 films varying in style animation, documentary, live action, adult-themed and family films. They touch on relationships, war, chance encounters, monsters, love, abandonment and world issues.

The more than 100 short films from as far away as South Africa, Australia, China and Belgium will be shown at the American Legion Hall on California Avenue. (Unfortunately, the renovated Boulder Theatre isn't available.)

"It's like a sampling of all these great ideas that you're not going to see anywhere else," Lanier, a member of the Dam Short Film Society, said.

"There's a lot of high-quality short films that make you laugh, cry, think, be challenged, shocked, scared. This is a very unique art form. People see only a small percentage of them, if any really."

Lanier started working in film in 1989, freelancing as a script supervisor on live-action sets. In 1994 he started working in computer animation, and eventually worked at Disney doing visual effects for such live-action features as "Mortal Kombat," "First Kid" and "Operation Dumbo Drop." He then went to work for Pacific Data Images, where he worked on "Antz" and "Shrek."

In 2000 he decided to pursue his own projects and moved to Las Vegas three years ago. He teaches in the arts and animation program at the Art Institute of Las Vegas, a major sponsor of the Dam Short Film Festival.

There are handfuls of short film festivals in cities throughout the country, including Los Angeles, Manhattan, Palm Springs, Calif., and Aspen, Colo.

But Lanier has only attended two and says short films are often overlooked, quick to be shelved and not as easily accessible as other film and video work.

"Sometimes Sundance Channel or HBO does a showcase, but that's it," Lanier said. "There are so many made, and programs at festivals only want to show recent films. The really high-quality films you don't see anymore.

"If you do short films, you're kind of considered second class. It's like a caste system almost. You don't get the same respect."

So why make them?

Often, Lanier said, shorts are used as calling cards that can lead to other projects in TV and film or are student films or films made by hobbyists.

"Animators tend to work in short film," Lanier said. "To do more is difficult."

And compared to feature films, he said, "(Shorts) are much more accessible. Much more doable."