Valve has released this video to show us how they create their mini-movies.

It is presented by Bay Raitt, who, amongst other things, was responsible for the making of Gollums face in Lord of the Rings. In fact, Bay Raitt and his colleagues, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon, and Ken McGaugh, won the Visual Effects Society Award for Best Character Animation in a Live Action Motion Picture for their work on the Lord of the Rings. 

And, while you’re loitering on this blog post have a look at this, seriously, why can’t Maya work the same?