The Miser

In case you hadn't guessed from posts here and on the forum a bunch of the first year students have ambitiously decided to use their major studio project for this year to make a film for entering into Tropfest. Maybe I'll put together a post with Frank (one of the ringleaders) about it at some stage, but for now its interesting that it has influenced the content I've been looking for to post here.


Of late the conversation has turned to "simplicity", effective ways to use design and abstraction. So here is a film that I thought applied those principles. I think this was discussed in Jane's layout class too, and you can see the layouts here are stylized, simple and effective. This is student work from the US too.

2 comments:

frank said...

I think the students who made it preferred to animate the dog. He certainly stole the show in my opinion. Especially on the windy day.

It seems the support characters always are the most interesting in a story. More lee-way to develop, possibly, as the main character's path is set?

The way the Thief moved left no doubt as to his character (and he was transparent, very sneaky).

Simplicity in design and careful use of limited animation. It relied a lot on the narration.

I watched it with the sound turned off (should have done that first). And without the bird moralising, it would be a bit hard to understand why the dog pushes a rock in the hole.

The colour use for when the miser visits the hole (visiting the grave of his gold) in different weather conditions is good.

The character animation (meaningful gesture) and shoulder slump when the Miser discovers the theft was effective.

Them's my thoughts.

Ian said...

lacey.ianI think often there is a tendency to play it safe with the main character. I know at Disney when I worked there the Directors would say stuff like, "he's a bit too emotional there, we don't want the audience to hate him."

One exception I can think of is Southpark, I have noticed that in the most recent series screening here, Cartman has often become the cental character, when he is usually the most offensive. So it can work, but we did have a long time to get to know the character while he was more on the side, maybe they are relying on the fact that we are familiar with him already.