A badger just wants to sleep in his den in a Scottish hill, but he is disturbed, first by cawing crows, and then by the military placing missiles below his home. Written & Directed by: Sharon Colman, Produced by: Jamie Wolpert. 7 min
In a time of mega-corporate, 3-D spectaculars and low-rent, Internet flash pieces, Sharon Colman has taken the middle road. Her traditionally animated short, Badgered, is simple, yet elegant, with water-colored skies, and an amazingly expressive badger. It can be seen as a comical examination of troubling environmental and nuclear issues, or just a charming character study of a furry animal who wants nothing more than a nap. Either way, it’s bound to amuse.
The idea for the tale of a much put-upon beastie came to Colman when thinking about the paradox of nuclear weapons in the apparently natural country side.
“Near my hometown in Scotland there’s a nuclear base where they store weapons under the hills. You know I’ve watched nuclear convoys drive past my home, and I’m a real country person. so the idea came from what would the animals under the ground think about sharing their home with a nuclear weapon. So I approached it with humour, and left a little environmental message underneath for anybody that wants it.”
While a supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Colman keeps the politics to a minimum. What stands out is how the badger can say so much by doing so little. A blink here, a scratch there, and you know exactly what is going through his head. There is no frantic motion or cluttered frames, just gentle movements that emphasizes his innocence. This is a delightful, easy to digest short that may not break new ground, but still manages to be something special.
Created for £5000 as part of her Masters project at Britain’s National Film and Television school, Colman was shocked to find her film a 2005 Oscar nominee. But this isn’t a first. Nick Park’s Wallace and Gromit short, A Grand Day Out, was his project for NFTS and was nominated in 1991 (it lost to another of his films, Creature Comforts). Badgered has stiff competition in the Best Animated Short Film category, and the smart money isn’t on it to win. Win or lose, it’s an entertaining seven minutes.