The Present review

What I watched

I watched the animated short The Present by Jacob Frey. this short is about a boy who receives a dog from his mom as a present but he docent like it because the dog only has 3 legs. The boys disappointment is obvious but as the dog runs around chasing a ball he starts to like the dog more. The short ends with him getting off the coach to go play outside with the dog reveling that the kid has only 1 leg and must use crutches to walk.

Animation Breakdown 

This animation does a very good job with its story line and keeping the interest of the viewer. ease in and out is also used in this animation. Arcs are used make the boy and dog look more realistic. Since both the dog and the kid are natural things they will have arcs in their movement which is needed to make them look realistic and the animator did a good job of adding arcs and making sure their movements are believable and not robotic. The animation exaggerate certain aspects especially with the dog to emphasize the face that it is missing a leg but still make it look cute. By exaggerating the dog tripping and falling when trying to run it helps the audience connect to the dog and make it likable which helps the viewer also connect with the kid as he slowly warms up to the dog. One example of this is when the dog is chasing the ball and trips, it does a complete roll after tripping which would not actually happen instead a real dog would most likely face plant by adding this it makes the dog tripping something cute and likable not something bad.

My Application 

One thing in this animation that I have already learned is story development. The story did a great job of developing and concluding it's story in a short amount of time which can be hard to do. While working on my 2D story animation I learned just how difficult it can be to develop a story in an animated short and story holes can ruin your animation. A good story needs to have a problem, rising action, a climax and falling action all of which this animation had. If I could take one thing from this animation and apply it to my work it would be the use of exaggeration. The animation did an amazing job of using exaggeration to convey the story and make everything work and it is something I don't do a lot in my animations,

Conclusion

In conclusion this animated short was very good and was able to tell a great story through a very short amount of time and was able to keep my interest. I can take away from this short how the uses of exaggeration and arcs can make my animations not only more realistic but also more interesting to watch and can help the audience connect with my animation. 

The Present from Jacob Frey on Vimeo.