Evangeline Than

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” – Antoine de Saint Exupéry

This wonderful animated short by Louis Clichy, a Pixar animator and Gobelins graduate (the same school that produced Oktapodi) is pretty close to perfection.

You can view more of Clichy’s work at the Cube Creative Computer Company website.

Sources: embedded video from Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePMK3FeyYxI. I first read about this film at Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog, URL: http://drawn.ca/2009/05/08/a-quoi-ca-sert-l%e2%80%99amour/ (posted May 9th, 2009).

I can’t claim to be an expert in this area, but I’ve seen a lot of animation and read a lot of books, and this appealing short has the following elements of a successful creative work:

• It all starts with a great story.
• Leave in only what’s necessary, nothing more.
• Show, don’t tell.

We also had a life drawing class at Perth Zoo recently, and it gives me a thrill to see the lemurs, penguins and bats again (and in cartoon form to boot)! Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great pleasure to present Zoologic by Nicole Mitchell:

Sources: embedded video from Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePMK3FeyYxI. I first read about this film at Lost At E Minor, URL: http://www.lostateminor.com/2009/03/27/zoologic/ (posted March 27th, 2009).

This short film is what you might call highly stylised. Some people have a problem with this, but I don’t mind as long as it’s accompanied by a good story. And boy, is this a good story. Ida’s Luck was written and animated by Katy Towell, with fantastic narration by Tim Jones and haunting music by Kevin McLeod. (I found the singing a little hard to listen to, but maybe that was the point.)

You can view part 1 of Ida’s Luck below. To view part 2, visit Katy’s CHILDRIN R SKARY site at http://skary.net/movies/:

Sources: embedded video from Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0WOLzxxrYI. I first read about this film at Ticklebooth, URL: http://ticklebooth.com/2009/02/idas-luck/ (posted February 24th, 2009).

Julia made My First Crush as as her final film project at Kingston University in 2007 (do correct me if I’m wrong). I’m very fond of anthropomorphic animals, and the voices (voice acting? Well, they’re real accounts, so I suppose they’re not acting. Hum.) are superb. Scenes flow so nicely into each other (I know this sounds so mumsy and boring, but they do) and the light music in the background creates the perfect atmosphere.

Poignant, funny, tender, and full of simple and heartfelt appeal, this is one of my favourite animated shorts. It makes me smile whenever I watch it.

Sources: embedded video from Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY4Epc2XSGc. I first read about it in Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog at http://drawn.ca/2007/12/26/my-first-crush/ (posted December 26th, 2007).