To start things off I'm going to be looking at a short movie created by Walt Disney in 2012 called 'Paperman' this animation-short is a romanic comedy featuring a man and a woman and a paper plane.
I freaking love this short film, all of the signs and emotions are so subtle which really leaves a lot to the imagination. This has to be my favourite all time short film and re watching it just confirms that again.
The subtle style of connotations is definitely an approach I'm going to be looking at, it shows skills on behalf of the animator and also confidence in his expressions on each character.
When looking at the animation it isn't anything over complicated, its relatively simple human movements, its very well done but nothing that I couldn't learn given a period of time. I feel the fact that the animation is black and white apart from the woman's lipstick really creates a powerful focus onto the love letter and its importance, it separates it from the other black and white documents that he is throwing out the window and makes it a part of the story.
After watching it multiple times I realised how many emotions the short film makes you feel within such a short space of time.
The film starts with the man standing still, you can hear the trains so you guess he's waiting at a train station, suddenly as you've finished analysing his emotions a train shoots past, startling both the man and the audience, he sees a girl and the wind blows one of his work sheets into her face, where he lipstick rubs off onto the piece of paper, she giggles and he looks and laughs, when he looks up she is off moving on another train. This is the 'taken away from him/her/it' stage, something sad happens. Then he goes to work and realises how dull his life is now he's had a taste of love, this is 'harsh reality'. As he's working he sees her in a building opposite by a window waiting patiently for what looks like a job interview, he's so surprised to see her and the music changes, he then thinks of anything to try and get her attention, as a viewer you don't ask why he's trying to get her attention as its obvious its a love story.
This is the effect I would like to achieve having such powerful emotions and actions.
In the screenshot above you can see the expression on his face, the animator has perfectly captured a surprised and anxious look, this is the moment he spots the woman in the building opposite his. When analysing the face closer his mouth is posed open with anticipation his eyes are wide with surprise and eye brows raised, this and the lowered jaw and the only things that have changed but give an you an immediate idea of what he's thinking. Certain traits won't be reproducible when working with a balloon, however the scene and other elements / possible people in the movie clip could be manipulated in such a way.
In this second screenshot you can see the moment they meet the expressions and eyes are telling a story, that they like to look of each other if nothing else, then later on you can see his shocked/realisation look that he is in love with this woman just as she leaves. The lipstick is the only coloured object in the entire film, as seen in both screenshots above.
The music also plays a massive part in the success of this short film, the classical simple and suitable song has been used as a guideline for the editing giving a nice effect.
In this scene the music has a beat every time each paper aeroplane hits the wall which is something I'd like to incorporate into my own short film, having the film and the music work in synergy can lead to impressive results.
Overall I think Paperman is the best short film I've seen, the first time I saw it as soon as I got home I watched it over and over again it is perfectly made from the animation to the editing
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