Review: Indie animation gets a hopeful spotlight in beautiful doc Papercuts

Animation is a hard, time-consuming, often expensive process. These qualities are even truer, more extreme, for an indie animator. In addition to all the challenges that go into making something, an animator working on their own has so many additional challenges to worry about -- how to pay the bills, how to adapt their process, putting on other hats. Can't afford a sound designer? You're a sound designer now!

I really love when I get the chance to check out independent animated movies. They obviously stand out in the medium where a lot of the bigger titles start to look and feel increasingly similar as they pursue bigger and bigger box office returns. I don't blame the studios. Animation regularly provides some of the best financial results every year, and part of the reason is the mainstream appeal, the ease of watching these movies, that much-desired four-quadrant appeal. And the studios still manage to put out stuff that's hugely entertaining, artful, compelling, emotional. 

But man, there's something so special about the rough edges, the bleeding heart of indie animation. And that's really on display with Eric Power's candid documentary Papercuts: My Life as An Indie Animator. Rendered in Power's gorgeous stop-motion paper animation, he generously pulls back the curtain on the realities of his life and careers, the ups (somewhat rare, but hard-earned) and the downs (more frequent, but never the end).

Power himself serves as the film's narrator, depicted with big blue eyes and a gravity-defying bouffant, and he's a pleasure to listen to. Largely based out of Austin, Power has an appropriately hangout vibe to his delivery. It feels like spending an hour and a half with a buddy who's charmingly self-deprecating, who can talk about his life with clear eyes and a tender heart. Yeah, it hasn't always been easy. But no, he probably wouldn't change much that happened along the way.

After a brief bit of biographical background (siblings, divorced parents, childhood vacations to the forest where he experienced "nostalgia in the moment," one of the best feelings in the world, I'd say, and perfectly put), Power starts to hone in on his (self-)education. A child of the eighties and nineties, a lot of this stuff really resonated with me. I loved going to the video store and picking up obscure titles. I still remember when a friend and I randomly rented Almodóvar's Bad Education from Blockbuster in high school. It hit me like a bolt of lightning.

Power recounts similar epiphanies, raging from video games like Ghosts 'n Goblins and Mortal Kombat to films like Night of the Living Dead. He also pinpoints Gumby as an early gateway into animation, the classic character's clay-ball origin serving as a sort of magic key in unlocking his interest in the medium. It's the kind of thing a kid can see and think, Maybe I could do that.

I think that feeling will cross the minds of most people who watch this movie. Power has always been an experimenter, and remains one today. He tries out various animation styles, techniques, equipment. Some of them come off more successfully than others, but all are valuable as a part of an education, a development as an artist. It's inspiring stuff to be sure, and an important reminder of how hard it is to find your voice and your style, but how worthwhile that trouble is. It's really cool to see some of Power's early work, so charming and cool in its rough playfulness, compared to the much more polished stuff he animates now.

And god, his work is gorgeous. I've said it before and I'll say it again, but I love stop-motion animation. But I rarely see paper stop-motion. It's so fucking cool, so unique, so striking. Every detail feels so special and evocative. The colors are so bright, the shapes bold, the movements impressive. Seeing how Power experimented with various approaches -- building his own multi-plane set-up, starting to utilize green screen, employing mixed media to achieve a more painterly aesthetic -- is really awesome.

It's fun, too, to see him bring a lot of pop cultural touchstones to life in his signature style, both from projects he worked on professionally (like the "Tatooine" music video that draws on various Star Wars characters and scenes) and ones that (I think) were done specifically for this doc (I gasped when Gris popped up toward the end). Also, since a lot of Power's work has been for music videos, there's a lot of great music in this movie. My Shazam was getting a workout.

As warts-and-all as this documentary is -- not shying away from both personal and professional lows -- there's an underlying air of hope that's really refreshing, and that I think I really needed. I work in the industry, and it's rough right now. The show I've worked on for eight years is coming to an end in December, and the job market is barren, and I don't know what I'm going to do. So many people in so many industries are facing similar plights. Sometimes, maybe most of the time, it's scary just to be alive. But there are still so many bright, creative people out there finding their way and making the work, and getting it out there one way or another. It's not always easy. It's rarely glamorous. But it gets done, and we all benefit from the resultant art.

Even in the face of an uncertain future, Power remains optimistic about the state of indie animation. And in the film's closing moments, he recalls a piece of advice he received years ago: "Make a film. It'll last longer." True words, man.

I'm excited for the future of indie animation, too. And I'm excited to check out more of Power's work. I see Path of Blood is currently streaming on Tubi. So I think I'll start there. And I'll be eager to check out whatever comes next.