Other Early Projects
Cruikshank's next short, the eight-minute, 35mm "Make Me Psychic" (1978; working title "Mesmeroid Madness") returns Quasi and Anita and adds the suave Snozzy. Built around a device that taps into one's latent telekinetic power, leading to slapstick at a party, the $14,000 film also was financed by Cruikshank, with the higher budget going toward the hiring of additional cel painters and increased lab fees. Of its slicker look than her previous short, Cruikshank said, "People didn't know what to make of 'Quasi.' It was pretty hard to absorb in one sitting, solid. So, I thought I would try directing the eye more, by simplifying things and giving the next film a clearer focus." The Cheap Suit Serenaders again supplied music.
In 1980, Cruikshank won a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to create a storyboard and three-minute sample reel for a proposed animated feature, Quasi's Cabaret, which she described as involving "three hedonistic ducks who try to open the ultimate tropical nightclub." She also tried developing feature projects combining live action and animation, one a comedy set in a mental institution, the other, Joystick, a "sort of a humorous horror story" about the effects of computer animation on an artist modeled on herself. Additionally, she attempted to sell cable-TV networks on "Weird Airways", a projected series of three-minute shorts starring Snozzy as the owner-pilot of a charter airline and Anita as a flight attendant.
Read more about this topic: Sally Cruikshank, Biography
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