animated short

Sintel

Sintel

Sintel is a next in a series of visually stunning and captivating short animation films initiated by the Blender Foundation. The previous - Big Buck Bunny and Elephant's Dream - have been a huge success and associated The Blender name and the Foundation itself with the highest quality animation worldwide. Sintel tells a story of a young girl on a long and dangerous quest to save her best friend, a baby dragon. With plenty of time to tell the story (this short is little over 14min - the longest of all three), the team had a chance to fully showcase both their creative and technical skills and the capabilities of their animation software, Blender. Fast action scenes, fires, landscapes & complicated facial features - all you could expect from a multimillion animation studio, but done by a small, international team of creators working on open source, free software with a budget of $550k.

Moonboy – An Animated Short Film

Moonboy is a short film by Adam Calfee. It is about a young boy who has gotten all fed up with what the television has to offer. “There has got to be more to life than this,” he seems to be thinking, while channel surfing and catching one lame TV commercial after another. What does he do? He aims for the moon! The creative design of Moonboy is simply awe-inspiring. The film boasts of amazing colors to contrast the deceptively simple illustrations. It also makes good use of subtle elements like shadows and natural facial expressions that make each frame very creative and playful in spite of the darkness in the young boy’s thoughts. I particularly like how the moon looks so magnificent and real, although the stars could use a little more playfulness. For instance, the night sky could have looked even more astounding with the hint of a nebula. But overall, the short film is already a visual feast as it is.

Pigeon: Impossible by Lucas Martell – technically stunning and hilarious 3D Pixar-style animated short

"Pigeon: Impossible" is the tale of Walter, a rookie secret agent faced with a problem seldom covered in basic training: what to do when a curious pigeon gets trapped inside your multi-million dollar, government-issued nuclear briefcase. This animated short movie is not only technically impressive, but also very well crafted in terms of the story line, keeping the viewer truly entertained for the entire 6 minutes.