402 #15 - Alleycats (2018)

Alleycats is an action animated short released in 2018 by Blow Studio. The short centres around a sword wielding cat who fights a gang of larger cats and kills their boss in revenge for killing his father, only to realise the boss had a son nearby and be in a similar position to the boss. There is no dialogue in this short, everything is told through visuals.

I love pretty much everything about this short. The character designs are very stylised and unique, the lead being the most so. His design combines aspects of cat physique with the style of ninjas and even his dual swords, all of which are blended together incredibly well.

The cinematography is fantastic as well, fully utilising the gorgeous background to create some remarkable shots. The opening shot is one of my absolute favourites and leads very well into the lovely animation.

The short also utilises a 2D animation style using only three main colours (with various shades) to show flashbacks to give context to the plot. Although the animation is much slower and simpler, it has a gorgeous look to it and is so radically different to the main short's animation it is clearly a different part of time.

402 #14 - Less Than Human (2017)

Less Than Human was a 3D animated short film created by a small team through the Animation Workshop. The short is shot as a news report on cured zombies that still physically resemble their undead state but are now mentally competent and sentient again, the main plot focusing on an interview with two cured zombies.

I really liked the character models, as they have a slightly blockier appearance than accurate human features, which makes them distinct from reality, but all the textures in the short have a dirty, grunge aspect to them, allowing the character models to work with the backgrounds better and to make them feel more actual.

The character design is also quite interesting. The thin zombie gives off quite quickly is more of a hippy with his friendly nature, green Earth shirt and the shots of plants used while he's talking, while the larger zombie gives off a tougher nature with a large stature, deeper voice, and bent over posture.

I also very much liked the ending shot of the wall around the camp, which is rather reminiscent of the border wall between the US and Mexico that was being campaigned for around the time, which was steeped in much racism. The shot also has quite a lot of dirt and grunge, as well as a lot of graffiti using phrases like 'go back to your graves' which is also quite reminiscent of modern western racism.

402 #13 - Sparkshorts: Loop (2020)

Loop is a 3D animated short film created by Pixar for a series of shorts developed by general unknown creators to bring up a varied amount of topics and themes that may not be seen in most media. Loop focuses on a non-verbal autistic girl and a neurotypical boy as they try to find mutual understanding.

I absolutely adore the backgrounds of this short, as it takes place in a lake outside a city, so there is a lovely mix of water (which is very well done), greenery, and some light urbanisation. And of course, since Pixar was behind it, every background model is highly detailed, the easiest to see in that respect is the pier.

I also liked how they showed the world from the girl's perspective, as the intricacies of thought that would be different is much harder to present, but the sensory differences can be easier, like the world being a bit too bright and sound being too much sometimes. Towards the end, she gets sensory overload, which I have had a few times and the presentation of what it is like was pretty spot on.

402 #12 - Hair Love (2019)

Hair Love was a Kickstarter funded short film produced by Sony Animation, directed by Matthew A. Cherry. The short film uses 2D animation to tell a simple story of a father having to help his daughter with her hair before they visit his wife, who is recovering from illness.

The film has had much praise for its representation of African-Americans in a more relatable, everyday scenario, which isn't frequently done, as many uses of non-white characters is usually addressing some form of entrenched racism in society, but this short focuses more on the family aspect, and the hair.
The film is also praised for the mother being alive and having survived the illness, as it is so very common in children's films (especially Disney) for the mother to be dead.

The style of the art in the film has a more realistic look with the adults and a more squishy cartoony feel with the daughter and the cat. That is pretty standard in a lot of animated kid's films, but it is still a nice style to watch and gives a lovely heartwarming feeling at the end.

402 #11 - Untamed (2016)

Untamed was a seven minute short created by a 3rd year CG animators from Denmark at the Animation Workshop. There is no dialogue in the short, the plot is all told through action.
The plot follows a failed Jazz trumpet player as he succumbs to alcoholism and his fifteen year old daughter, who suffers because of it.

The short has a lower frame rate than most CG films, which gives it a clear, visually recognisable style, and the character models have a slightly more basic shape look rather than going for complete realism. Having a clearly recognisable visual style is very important in animation, since with modern technology, anyone can make animated films, there should be an appealing and recognisable look to them.

The team behind the short clearly wanted to focus on symbolism and metaphor in the short, which I do like, although something I dislike about the short is it's heavy handed-ness with such metaphor and how focal the metaphor is. Personally, I prefer metaphor and symbolism to be more subtle and less integral to the story, more to be in the background so requiring more debate and interpretation among the audience. That said, I can still appreciate the use of it in this short.

402 #10 - The Breadwinner (2017)

The Breadwinner was an animated drama film released in 2017 centred around the life of a young girl named Parvana in Taliban controlled Kabul, Afghanistan.
The animation of the film is very well done, the colour palettes leaning towards browns and yellows and toned down colours as it takes place in a desert type environment, but throughout the film, Parvana tells a fairy tale-like story to various characters, which uses more limited animation, but a wider colour palette to help distinguish the two. The fairy tale Parvana tells is also used to help explain what happened to her elder brother, blurring the lines between the various purposes of telling the story.

The main plot centres around Parvana's father being unjustly arrested by the Taliban, leaving no older male relative in their family (which the Taliban requires for a woman to go outside), so Parvana begins dressing as a boy to be able to get supplies. The more she sees the freedom of being a male in their society, the more she enjoys just going out with a friend, Shauzia, who is doing the same. The film ends on the beginning of the American war with Afghanistan, Operation Enduring Freedom/Freedom's Sentinel.

Seeing into a culture, both the original and the corrupted version, that is so heavily demonised by western media was fascinating to me, as the most I had previously seen of the culture of Afghanistan was human right's violations, war, and poverty, but the Breadwinner showed what life and the culture was like before the Taliban hijacked it and how it still survives.

402 #9 - Steamed Hams Reanimated

With the invention of the Internet, YouTube, and increasingly powerful home computers, animators are able to create animation at home, with complete creative control, all they need is time. Because of this, many animators have risen to prominence on platforms like YouTube and are able to create projects and series they have complete control over for a living, which many studio based animators are unable to do.
A very popular form of animation on YouTube is a Multi-Animator Project (or MAP), which is usually a group of animators animating their own or their favourite characters to a song, piece of dialogue, or scene.
Personally, I have participated in many MAPs on YouTube, some of my first bigger animation projects were MAPs, so I have a soft spot for them. A favourite of mine is a reanimation of a famous scene from the Simpsons; Steamed Hams. The animation was created by 13 animators who all animated 13 seconds of footage each. The video is actually titled 'Steamed Hams but There's a Different Animator Every 13 Seconds' and is hosted by YouTuber AlbinoBlackSheep.
I've included both an in-blog version and a link here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8R3qHKS-dk&list=PL13WX51WMMuiIGJG8J5Hs4EL6XaBOAVym&index=57&t=43s

Some of the animated segments are very well done, with fluid animation and exaggeration that fits the humour of the original scene.

I also very much love how some of the animators changed the origins of the original sound effects, like the burger taking a bite out of the Superintendent's head rather than the other way around and using the original sound effects to make it fit into the part.

402 #8 - Studio Ghibli

Founded in 1985 in Tokyo, Japan, Studio Ghibli has created over 20 feature films and been nominated and won multiple awards including Academy Awards.
My personal favourites are Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Castle in the Sky, and Tales from Earthsea.

Something all Ghibli films have in common that I have a love for is the backgrounds. Every film builds its environment with absolutely gorgeous backgrounds, which is very necessary for all three films, as their worlds are almost completely different than our own. Each background expertly uses colour and photography principles to construct the world with visuals and set each location as separate places.

Each Ghibli film also has a certain character or animal design that is closely linked to the film and is usually seen as a mascot of the individual films.
In Nausicaa, it is arguably two animal designs of the giant Ohm and the Fox Squirrel (although this design would appear in later films, it was first used in this film).

In Castle in the Sky it is easily the robot. Within the film, there are multiple robots towards the end of the film that are essentially just an army, but two particular robots are able to show such interesting personalities and character with no speech.

In Tales from Earthsea, the design of the dragons are very unique and recognisable, most likely from both the beautiful animation of them in the film and the use of the design on the cover.

Another piece of every Ghibli film is its music, which is always unique and memorable to the film it belongs to. Nausicaa and Castle in the Sky have two of my absolute favourite pieces of music that is used in scenes of flight. It very much shows how music can be utilised in animation to help immerse the audience and leave a lingering impact decades after its release.