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Nor will “The Bigger Picture” take the prize. The animation is perhaps the most inventive, blending in claymation, traditional animation, and realistic animation, all with real objects, to give a sense of depth of characters and objects in each scene. The story is also moving in its own right. But some of the outsize symbolisms in the piece distract from it a bit and, in the seven years I’ve been watching the shorts, no short has won that features these styles. Some pundits are marking this one down, but I will be surprised if it pulls it off - it is a bit outside of the mainstream they’ve selected here before.

Canada’s “Me and My Moulton” is one I’ve also seen predicted by some, but I also don’t see it. It tells the story of a girl and what happens when she asks her parents for a bike. It is touching but not particularly striking or inventive, and it is the least memorable of the group.

I think the race boils down to Disney’s “Feast,” which screened ahead of Big Hero 6 in theaters, and the emotionally complex and symbolic “The Dam Keeper.” It would be a mistake to predict a win for Disney’s entry simply because it is Disney or because it screened ahead of a movie people saw and therefore had an audience. Last year, I went down that path predicting “Get a Horse!” to win - it had screened in front of the record-breaking and Oscar-winning Frozen - and the much more emotional “Mr. Hublot” came out on top. In retrospect, that outcome seemed obvious. More often than not the short with an effective emotional punch wins these races.

But, unlike “Get a Horse,” “Feast” does pull at the heart strings. It tells the story of a man’s relationship with his dog as he moves through life, and reinvents the old adage of dog as man’s best friend. It is beautifully colored, hysterical at times, and truly heart-warming. I haven’t seen a short I liked this much in a couple of years. Still, I wonder whether my judgment is clouded again and I’m not seeing that the symbolic, beautiful, and complex “The Dam Keeper” is the real threat. It tells the story of a pig who is the target of bullying by others in school, and how he navigates those issues. Past winners here, including “Mr. Hublot,” “The Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore,” etc., all feature lonesome, melancholic characters, like the pig in this movie.

I’m going to stick to my favorite (and sink or swim again with the Disney ship) and mark down “Feast” for the win, but “The Dam Keeper” is a very likely outcome as well.

Best Live Action Short

Of three challenging shorts categories this year, the live action is the hardest to predict. Looking at past winners provides no solace: sometimes quirky and artistic films win, sometimes emotional pieces take the prize, and they’ve even awarded pseudo-political commentary films.

I would discard “Butter Lamp” first. It is a stationary camera shot of a Tibetan photographer taking pictures of individuals with different fake backgrounds. The political message is subtle (the backgrounds contrast capitalism and communism, for example) but perhaps too much so, and very little happens. The message will go way above the head of most.

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