SINdie reviews a small selection of animation shorts from the recent TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System) DigiCon6 Award animation entries from Singapore. You can actually watch all 19 entries from the Viddsee website here. To find out more about the competition, check out our previous introduction.
First up is Molly. Molly is directed by Muhammad Arfandi, Grace Ho, Timotheus Teo, Muhammad Irzad, Ham Shi Ying, Ng Tse Pei, Goh Cher See. You can watch Molly via this link.
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About hope and
dreaming big, this simple five minute animation is about a house pet cat
helping Molly, the fish to return back to the sea. With a straightforward
storyline, this animation definitely warmed my heart.
With the adorable
nature of the characters and the use of vivid bright colours, I think the
animation will mainly appeal to young audiences. However, there are definitely
qualities that draw this clip away from a typical children cartoon episode.
With the great use of
transition between different scenes, the change in setting is seamless and not
abrupt. One minute you are admiring the beautiful life under the sea and before
you know it, you are back in the fish tank with Molly. This provides an element
of surprise and keeps the audience engaged and eager to figure out what is
going on, without making the journey bumpy and uncomfortable.
The use of various
perspectives gave the story more insight to the background of the city the
story was taking place in as well as more visual candy for your eyes to feast
on. Not only that, but the change in perspectives allow the audience to view
the action from various places – keeping things interesting and exciting.
However, the element
that attracted me the most in this animation will be the strong use of visual
communication. Even though no words were communicated throughout the clip,
other than occasional purrs, the emotions were clearly communicated with the
use of body language and the eyes of the characters. I liked this because the
animators tried to stick to the true nature of animals instead of making them
more human.
Opening my eyes to
details and wordless communication, this is definitely a lovable animal
adventure that is worth your time.
Review by Dawn Teo
Dawn has dabbled in the arts since young and doing theatre since she was 14 and she has been a part of more than ten productions locally. Just completing an editorial internship with Youth.SG, Dawn hopes to write more to hone her skills in expressing herself through words.