Rejected (2000)

Interesting facts

• Awards: 0 · Nominations: 1

Rejected is an animated surrealist short comedy film directed by Don Hertzfeldt that was released in 2000. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film the following year at the 73rd Academy Awards, and received 27 awards from film festivals around the world.

Production

While attending the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in film studies, Don Hertzfeldt released four student films—one per year—between 1995 and 1998, graduating at the end of 1998. These short films, Ah, L'Amour (1995), Genre (1996), Lily and Jim (1997), and Billy's Balloon (1998), grew increasingly successful on the film festival circuit, with Billy's Balloon competing for the Short Film Palme d'Or at th…

Working alone in his studio, Hertzfeldt began production on Rejected in 1999 as a satirical response to commercial animation and the advertising industry. The short film was conceived as a collection of television commercials which had supposedly been commissioned—and subsequently rejected—by fictional corporate clients, including the "Family Learning Channel" and "Johnson & Mills".

In an unusual departure from standard animation practices, Hertzfeldt and Robert May recorded their voice lines after the animation had already been completed, which led them to improvise dialogue over scenes. Hertzfeldt later remarked that he voiced the characters May did not want to perform, and that much of the dialogue was improvised or changed at the last minute.

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