Peter Lord’s “Going Equipped”
Mike and I were first turned on to animation by Disney films, but it wasn’t until we saw a collection of Aardman Animation’s short films that we said, “This is IT!” We nearly wore out a VHS tape that had “Creature Comforts”, “Next”, “War Story” and most importantly for me, “Going Equipped” (1987).
“Going Equipped” was perhaps the first animated film I had ever seen that used naturalistic human acting. The character on screen anxiously massages his palms, shifts his weight, and furrows his brow. Like any other animation, it’s still an abstraction of reality. It’s choreographed, it’s fabricated, it’s controlled. But this is a performance more about subtlety and nuance than dynamic movement, and that was revolutionary to me. A bizarre film for a 12-year-old to become obsessed with perhaps, but it blew me away.
What are some of your favorite performances in animation?
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Mike Rauch
