Length: 04:44
Logline: A night in the life of a dog roaming the illuminated streets.
This is an animation which was done using "a combination of light with stencils and long exposure photography", something I'm glad the filmmaker tells us as this is another one of those 'wonder how they did it?' films.
A fitting soundtrack by Röyksopp plays from start to finish and story beats are set to it nicely. The contemporary music goes well with the look of the film; the high quality picture, the jittery movement and the atmospheric lighting that comes from a night time shoot in an urban area.
The lighting also plays a pivotal part in the animation. The transparent and vibrant luminous animals don't look out of place in this neon setting. The stencils account for the simplistic character design and limited movement which does okay but isn't anything extraordinary.
A cute story about a little dog chasing a cat about was an appropriate subject for the setting but am not sure how it fits the title. 'Going Nowhere' would suit it more as the story doesn't really go anywhere and sort of comes full circle where the ongoing chase continues. That isn't a criticism, as it works well with the idea of life carrying on, even through the night, in an endless cycle. Or something.
The pace is slow due to lengthy cut aways. The people in the ice rink, folk at the bus stop and the moon shots all okay space fillers but take the audience away from the main story and are relatively uninteresting to look at. Add to that the countless use of the same shot of the dog just running along a street or road and the interesting story/action shots suddenly seem very few and far between. The pacing is the films downfall but probably easily fixable. A tighter story and edit is needed.
Best Bit: Wagging tail.
Worst Bit: Slow pace.
Final thought: Was it really worth all the effort?
Read a condensed review of this film on Twitter here.
Cheers for your thoughts, Lee, with hindsight I think I agree with you on all the points, haha. A more explicit narrative is definitely needed and, like you say, the cut aways feel a little awkward. I can only say that it was my first attempt at a contrived piece of film, rather than spontaneous documentation of a process, etc.
ReplyDeleteI may return to the technique sometime and give it another whack; I'd certainly be interested to hear what you think if I make a 'sequel'.