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Accident

Dreamed c. 1970? by Jules Engel

A running dog vanishing bit by bit; 20 cels by Jules Engel from his short animation 'Accident'

I was being chased by a rather large dog, not mean or angry but the size of the dog frightened me and I started to run. As I was running I kept turning back to see where the dog was--sometimes the dog was not there and I would ease up on my running--and then again he would appear and I would be running from him.

As we were running down the street, we turned a corner and to my surprise the dog was in front of me and I was running to catch up with him as if in a race. We finally were squaring off and I was just behind the hind legs ready to catch up. I then overcame the body of the dog and I won the race.

But, the interesting and astonishing thing was that while we were racing, I could see as my body passed the various sections of the dog's body that they disappeared completely (though the rest of him that was left was still in the motion of running) till finally I overcame him completely and was running alone.

The movement of running and the section by section disappearance of the dog interested me--I wanted to remember the dream--to hold on to it, so it could manifest itself into a reality I could use in my films. As with such thoughts I let them lie and don't pound them to death trying to think up things to do with them. I let them pop up unexpected and if an idea is good it is bound to manifest itself in a useful way.

So sometime later when I was thinking of beginning a new project, I decided to draw the dog I saw in my sleep. I sat down in my studio, took a fresh piece of animation paper and started to draw the dog, decided to change the dog (as is always true at the beginning of a project, one has to make many changes). As I was making these changes, I naturally used an eraser--by accident it smudged the paper and the drawing--then bingo! The light went on! Thus through an "accident" the film Accident was created. I captured the movement and the disappearance that occurred in my dream.

SOURCE: Dreamworks: an Interdisciplinary Quarterly (v.1, no.1, spring 1980, p.76-77)



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