I’m already a massive Gobelins fan, so it’s no surprise that I love this animation, really. I love it especially, because it is themed around my absolute favorite holiday: Christmas.
The story is: A tramp is freezing himself half to death under a bridge one winter eve, when he finds a packet of cigarettes. He looses the cigarettes, endeavours to find them, and then finds himself falling down a massive hole hidden by some rubbish bins. What happens next? He is transported into a world of decadent debauchery and had a roaring good time, until he finds out that this wonderful place isn’t what it seems…
This particular animator from the University, is one of my favourites. I absolutely love their art style and character designs. I love the very, very subtle influence of the golden age of animation style in the movements too – for the overexaggeration of movements, not necessarily the fluidity that you would usually associate with the genre. There is also a subtle influence of Japanese / Eastern Asian styles of animation too: In the slight jittery-ness of some of the movements, and the exaggerated expresssions that conform to non-realism.
Even though our Hobo friend is quite a shady and disreputable character, you can’t help but feel endeared by him slightly – whether it be for his enthusiasm and desperation, or the hilarious representations of his short comings. Also, there is once again, as is in many of the films I’ve looked at on this blog, a distinct lack of dialogue. Despite the lack of dialogue, actions are clear indicators of what emotions and events are happening in the scenes – albeit a few grunt and murmurs.
Interesting fact: if you pay close attention to the buildings in the opening sequence of the film, there is some somewhat inconspiciuous graffiti on the walls which says: “Bum”. I like it when the artists behind an animated feature put in little hidden bits in their creations that you really have to look out for.
One very good factor about the cinematography of this animated feature, is the interesting varied camera angles, the use of depth of field, and the focus and lacking focus to symbolize the tramp’s drunken state.
I love the mix up of different genres of music in the soundtrack too. The way the background music starts off with light hearted generic Christmas-esque music, becomes more dreary when we’re introduced to the main character; and then the music changes completely to an up tempo medley of club music and much more boisterous music. The ludacris combination of a boisterous character with equally fitting music, really makes for some (slightly odd) festive entertainment!
…and now for the “Making of” accompanying video. There aren’t enough words in the dictionary or the thesaurus to describe how much I adore these production videos. I love seeing how other people work, and the extreme lengths they go to, art-wise, to make their ideas come to life! What I love the most about the development artwork in this video in particular, is how the artist had made so made so many various character designs for the hobo. I definitely need to put one of these together once I finish one of my pieces.
AbbieSTABBY 