Vince Collins’ Euphoria (2009)

This Monday Short was originally posted on April 10, 2017. We are re-posting Peter Hemminger's Monday Short Blog posts until we've exhausted the incredible archive.

Last week’s short was a bit bleak, so here’s something a little more vibrant. Vince Collins’ films from the ’70s and early ’80s are pretty much the definition of psychedelic. Bright, primary-coloured shapes morph and reconfigure in a non-stop stream-of-altered-consciousness, built around ingenious loops and a complete lack of restraint. It’s a shame that the only copies of his work that are still kicking around are so awkwardly compressed—there are plenty of indie animators intentionally aping the VHS aesthetic these days, but the transfers don’t do Collins’ crisp lines and intricate patterns any favours. But at least they’re still around, and available to watch through Vimeo and Youtube.

It’s worth browsing through Collins’ whole hand-drawn catalogue, which ranges from the pastoral to the patriotic to the pornographic (audiences booed that last one and occasionally fled the theatre in horror, but it found a cult following online). His more recent CG work is something else entirely; it’s equally manic and joyously unconcerned with the rules of “conventional” animation, but the simple models and limited movement are just too much of a barrier for me. At least you can’t accuse him of standing still.