Miaww...

My Imaginary cat....

AniMaZing comments on "Overcast"

(You know it's very good to get some comments and advice from the panelists, one of the fast ways to improve your way of thinking about making short-film)

Some comments on our short by Animazing panelists.

The backgrounds are simply stunning in this short. The character designs are good. Story needs a little more development. The idea that a flower can take off and search for the sun is great, but once it finds the sun, the ending seems anti-climatic with the overcast starting again. Very nice first film, shows promise. - Jim Keeshen

This story about the flower who runs after the sun, and the worm who runs after the food, is a story with many possibilities. I think it was a little slow, and the music was too “old fashioned”, like from the silent movies time. New music could give the film more power! - Kine Aune

This is a simple story of a journey to find sunshine by an ambulatory flower in Nike sneakers. The antagonist in the piece is a sweet looking, leaf eating caterpillar. The animation is unassuming but well developed. The characters move without being stiff. Nothing much happens except the flower finds the sun just as he is about to be eaten by the caterpillar. The interesting part, for me, was where after all that has happened, the flower still wants to befriend the caterpillar. But caterpillars will be caterpillars and yet again tries to take a bite out of the newly restored and growing flower. He gets tossed away for his trouble. - Jack Bosson

A good story for young children. The animation is very well done. Good character design. - Silvina Cornillón

Excellent animation and characters, but, a strong end is missing and makes the film weaker ... too bad. - Paul Dopff

Walking plant in search of sunlight. Liked the model and the animation. Good character design but annoying music. The caterpillar as predator / antagonist was a little too cutie and too simplistic on a story level. - Larry Loc

This charming little animated short is a great finale for this current group of shorts! I enjoyed it immensely--the characters, well-designed and the animation timing couldn't have been better; a cute story, with a nice ending; excellent color and values, and that wonderful ragtime piano score worked beautifully! All audiences should chuckle at this one! Congratulations to Friska! - Bill Matthews

Uneven, but has some very nicely observed and/or realized moments in the script. shows lots of promise - Frank Mouris

It’s cute and it moves well and the character is fun but I did find its very simple nature and structure a little difficult to engage with. The character has a future though – very entertaining with quite a bit of personality buried in there I reckon. - Malcolm Turner

Although the background music has the charm from a silent film, it is distracting against this animation on the screen. Watching it the second time without the music, it’s much better as it is. - Sharon Wu

An enjoyable piece, but in my view, really undermined by the poor choice of soundtrack. A more considered approach to sound would have enhanced the character animation, and perhaps advanced the dramatic conflict, so that the viewer might feel sympathy, anxiety, threat etc in relation to the central character. There are a set of dramatic relationships needing proper exploration and expression here, which would develop the potential in the narrative situation.

- Paul Wells

Emotion

I found it easier to animate when:

1. You know what the objective of the character.
2. If you stuck with how your character should move. STOP thinking about "how". Start with what does the character feel at the moment...
3. Evoke the emotion! After all, animation is about showing your emotion, right?!

Do you know usually at work you get a task to animate flying objects, text, words, spheres, chair, brooms, crates or even just a cube. Don't worry! Don't just move it but have you ever thought of what these objects are actually thinking and what do they want to do?
(Don't call me crazy but I tend to do that, it makes animating much more fun!) Try it.
:-)