The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore: Film for Book Lovers Wins Oscar

in Animation, Books, Film | February 26th, 2012 6 Comments

Remem­ber The Fan­tas­tic Fly­ing Books of Mr. Mor­ris Less­more? The short film we fea­tured a month ago? Well, it won an Oscar tonight for best ani­mat­ed short film, and we’re bring­ing it back for one more show­ing, plus adding it to our list of Oscar films avail­able online.

The Fan­tas­tic Fly­ing Books of Mr. Mor­ris Less­more offers a mod­ern trib­ute to an old world. Made with an ani­ma­tion style that blends stop motion with com­put­er ani­ma­tion and tra­di­tion­al hand-draw­ing, the silent film pays homage to a bygone era when ele­gant­ly print­ed books inhab­it­ed our world. The 15-minute short is the first made by Moon­bot Stu­dios, a fledg­ling ani­ma­tion shop in Shreve­port, Louisiana. For their efforts, Moon­bot’s founders (William Joyce, Bran­don Old­en­burg and Lamp­ton Enochs) received an Oscar-nom­i­na­tion this week (Best Ani­mat­ed Short), putting them in com­pe­ti­tion with two oth­er films fea­tured on Open Cul­ture: Sun­day and Wild Life.

We rec­om­mend watch­ing The Fan­tas­tic Fly­ing Books of Mr. Mor­ris Less­more on YouTube, or down­load­ing it for free in HD from iTunes. iPad own­ers will also want to con­sid­er buy­ing the relat­ed app ($4.99) that turns the film into an inter­ac­tive nar­ra­tive expe­ri­ence.

For more ani­mat­ed bib­lio­phil­ia, don’t miss:

Spike Jonze Presents a Stop Motion Film for Bib­lio­philes

Books Savored in Stop Motion Film

Going West: A Stop Motion Nov­el

Books Come to Life in Clas­sic Car­toons from 1930s and 1940s


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Comments (6)
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  • Ronny says:
    February 27, 2012 at 5:55 am

    Good news, this was a beau­ti­ful lit­tle sto­ry and an award is deserved.

    Reply
  • shamal says:
    February 27, 2012 at 8:47 am

    Thx a lot… I just have to say that the movie on iTunes seems not to be free, but 1.99$ or 2.99$ (SD or HD).
    Thanks for your work

    Reply
  • danny bloom says:
    February 28, 2012 at 4:22 am

    watch­ing now thanks…and the accep­tance speech the two direc­tors gave on TV last night was won­der­full too. William Joyce, Bran­don Old­en­burg appeared on TV at the Oscars, Bill in a black hat, and he ref­ered to them­levs as “just Loui­sisan boys, Loui­saisn swamp rats’ and “we;re ginan go bacjk to Loui­saisan now after the show and do what we love to do..” one of the best speech­es taht night here in taw­ian i saw it, dan­ny bloom, 1949–2032

    Reply
  • Greg L. says:
    March 3, 2012 at 2:11 pm

    I could­n’t help but to enjoy this film. This was tru­ly amaz­ing. I wish there were an eas­i­er way to find these shorts ear­li­er than Oscar sea­son. But until then, I’ll just have to wait until the Oscars come around to hear about them.

    I also checked out the iPad app ver­sion of the film, and it is remark­able — a full inter­ac­tive sto­ry­book with amaz­ing ways to par­tic­i­pate and inter­act with the sto­ry — a new stan­dard for chil­dren’s eBooks. I would high­ly rec­om­mend the app to those who enjoyed this film.

    Reply
  • anim us says:
    January 4, 2013 at 3:48 pm

    It ALWAYS make sense. Although on earth, most often, it is not enjoy­able. Even though it could always be …

    THANK YOU, mak­ers of this “Books” film, for hav­ing increased the time enjoy­able :)

    May GOD Bless you.

    Reply
  • Lilyana says:
    October 7, 2016 at 10:46 pm

    Sad­ly, no longer avail­able due to a copy­right claim. Mr. Oscar seems to change every­thing :)

    Reply

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