Bleatings from the Sheep

CGI Films

Now, onto something that actually relates to class a little more: the CGI films we watched in class a couple weeks ago.

“Bunny”

It was pretty interesting, and nice to watch. The animation was very well done, and since the main character was an old bunny with human characteristics, there was nothing too uncanny-valley-ish about it. The story was simple enough to follow along with as well. If I were the bunny, I would've been frustrated at that stupid bug as well. Very understandable. The ending was...intriguing, I suppose. I liked the part where there were wings on the two bunnies in the wedding picture. That was nice.

“Work in Progress”

I enjoyed this one a lot, actually. It was a great little twist that the most important person involved in creating the creatures turned out to be a little girl. It was also funny that the least necessary person was the one who was completely full of himself. I’m not really sure how much deeper I should analyze this one, but overall it seemed rather lighthearted. And even though the characters were all fairly realistic I didn’t find it creepy, so that’s good. Then again, maybe I have a higher tolerance for the uncanny valley stuff than others. For example, I think “The Polar Express” was given as an example somewhere by someone as an example of something that looks almost a little too realistic. I could be mistaken, but I’m pretty sure that contributed to the fact that my dad absolutely refused to see it. In fact, I’m fairly certain that was his only reason for wanting to avoid the movie. I never actually saw it either, but I don’t recall that being my reasoning, at least not on a conscious level. So while the creepy factor of the uncanny valley definitely does exist, I’m thinking that maybe some people have a higher tolerance for it than others.

“Pfffirate”

This one made me laugh. It was very cartoon-ish, which made it seem really lighthearted and bright. When you actually think about everything that happens, it’s by no means a happy story. The captain is constantly trying to protect his ship from being popped, but in the end, this fails and the mechanical bird punctures it. This is still fairly funny, but then at the end, it’s implied that the captain himself is punctured…which, to a balloon or other inflatable object, I would imagine means death. So yeah, that’s not exactly happy, but because the colors were so bright and everything looked like a cartoon, we can shrug it off and say it was lighthearted.

“The Dog Who Was a Cat Inside”

This one was cute. Somewhat. Okay, so I admit, it wasn’t the most interesting thing ever, but what can I say? The situation somewhat resolved itself--after all, the dog who was a cat inside was befriended by the cat who was a dog inside, so all was well. And I’m a sucker for a happy ending. I wasn’t really sure if there was supposed to be a deeper message or point to it, but does there need to be?

“Le Processus”

This one was weird. And dark. And creepy. And while using only black-and-white made it look pretty cool, it was still too creepy for me to really enjoy that much. Then again, I suppose the plain black-and-white approach added to the creepiness and aided the story along, emphasizing that this was a very bleak and rigid society. Still...just...the creepiness....

“Parenthesis”

This one really isn’t sticking in my mind much. To be honest, all I can remember is that I was fairly bored through it. It wasn’t too awful, though. Just a little dull for me.

posted by Caitlynn @ 11:27 PM