Friday, 12 June 2009

Ever seen an Octopus do a handbrake turn?

Oktapodi

2007 Animated short film

Directed by Julien Bocabeille, François-Xavier Chanioux, Olivier Delabarre, Thierry Marchand, Quentin Marmier, Emud Mokhberi.

This short story is about two octopi who are in love, due to some insensitive hungry people the pair become separated, the short film illustrates their struggle to be together, right until the very end.




When watching this film it reminds me of the type of film that is made specifically for children, the bright colours and the comical music together with the vague story-line and slight hint of terror: “the tyrannical cook” chopping the octopus up! Although I believe this short film was made to illustrate the detailed animation that the directors and animators were capable of.

I can’t help but compare this type of animation to the more widely know - Disney and Pixar animations we are all used to, for example Finding Nemo. The two styles are very similar and although the animation Oktapodi is developed to a very high standard with great attention to detail, the animation is still some what lacking although I can’t quite put my finger on what it is.

Even though there is a very high standard of animation demonstrated here, for me, the music is the selling point, it cracks me up every time I watch it and I think it is very suitable for the animation as personality shines through it.

Kenny Wood who has devised the music for this short animation has a unique style of composing, the music from this animation made me want to listen to more examples of his work, so I went looking and found several examples on his website. I suggest music from; The kitchen's Ink 2009 on http://kennywoodmusic.com/

There is also some more interesting short animations on his website that he has composed music for that are maybe worth a look at.
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2 comments:

  1. ERAB2 July 2009 at 14:37

    Love the film, great story line especially leaving it open at the end! I know what you mean about the difference in this to Disney Pixar films like finding Nemo. I think for them, although it is obviously a cartoon, their detail is based very heavily on realism and in some cases an exact match to what your eye would see. I remember watching a documentary on Finding Nemo where they demonstrated the huge amount of effort the production company went to in order to properly simulate water (apparently all down to "bubble concentration"!) Here, I think the artists have gone for a more pastel blanket over the colouring like keeping the walls white throughout the town and the one colour blues of the water. Maybe the movement is more extreme than you would find in a "one foot in the real world" Pixar film.

    Great Post! What a film!

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  2. Kim Dykes5 July 2009 at 03:34

    Yes! There is almost more atmosphere to the finding nemo "types" of animations! But this one is great, I'll definately be on the lookout for more things like this - very entertaining!

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