Trois Petits Chats (Professional Project Review)

     A family of porcelain cats' mother dies leaving the father alone with his two kittens. Their mother caught a disease that makes the cats crack and then die. While the father cat is trying to cope with the death of his wife, his kids try to make the best of themselves by playing outside, playing with each other, and cheering up their father. While the sister cat is flying a kite with her brother, she begins to cough a lot and the doctor is called. The doctor examines her and says that she has the same disease that her mother had causing her to crack. She is sent to the hospital where she is quarantined and where she can be monitored. While at the hospital, she begins to cough a lot but the doctors are not around to help her so her dad puts his son down and rushes into the quarantined room leaving his son behind and not knowing what is going on. Her dad picks her up and he begins to crack as well. The daughter then dies and the father dies soon after leaving his son alone and without a family.

     This story was supposed to be told through emotion and interpretation meaning that everything wasn't answered in the story so you had to interpret what would answer those questions. The main theme was loneliness and sadness giving it that "awe" effect which is really good when making a short film; you want to leave the audience with that silence at the end of the film.

     An element that I would apply to my own work would be the mood of a story. Mood and sound is everything in a short film to get that emotion drawn out from the audience. Another thing I would apply to my own animations from this film were the sound effects. Sound effects can really help tell a story even though there aren't any words. An element that I have already learned that is applied to this project is the lighting. The lighting and the shadows were perfect and really help set the mood for the emotion. For example, at the end the lighting was darker giving it that sad feeling. Another good thing that was applied to this animation that I have used in my projects before was the use of color. For example, in the beginning the colors were very grey and dark to give it that sympathy feeling for the cats.

     The creator of this short animation was a complete genius. He used the lighting, texturing, animating, color, and he set the mood perfectly for the scene. The lighting was always lit nicely and the shadows were very well done. The lighting was always lit nicely to give it the mood or feeling of the scene. The texturing was great and it really fit the characters well. For example, the dad was always wearing grey or a dark color to resemble his sadness of his loss while the kids were dressed in brighter clothes to resemble how happy they were and it described their personalities. The animating was very smooth and it wasn't jerky or quick to action. The walk cycles were also done really nicely even when they were playing or running. And then lastly, the color was used nicely. The colors were always really dark when they were sad or a little brighter when they were happy. Color really helped out a lot in this short to help draw out the feeling.

     This was a fantastic animation overall. I think everything was phenomenal in every way possible. I think that the creator spent a lot of time and thought out this animation because everything was just so precise and done smoothly. The creator knew how to tell a great story too and knew how to give the audience that silence in the end. This definitely is one of my favorite short animations that I have watched.