This week the London Film Festival is happening. And I was fortunate enough to get the last available tickets for some animation screenings (almost everything is sold out).
On Sunday, I saw the collection of carefully selected shorts (ANIMATED SHORTS FOR YOUNGER AUDIENCES). Among some well-known studio’s animations from Disney, Soyozmultfilm and Japanese studio Ponoc were presented works from the UK students- JERICO (2019, 1min), The Penguin Who Couldn’t Swim (2018, 5min), Home Sweet Home (2019, 1min).
But I would like to mention one particular work. It’s a 2D animation NEST (Germany, 2019, 4min) by director and animator Sonja Rohleder. The story is about Paradise bird who attempt to impress females.
This playful and musical animation stands out from others because the primary colour is black. The pure black background used throughout the whole movie. Hence, we don’t see the definite shape of the character, we can pay more attention to how it moves, how it expresses fillings and to a beautiful theme that leads us. Our mind builds necessary forms and just small bright, colourful elements like plants, berries, feathers and some body parts helps us with it.
And of course, the music plays a vital role in this work. As soon as there no additional sounds, it connects everything into the picture.
In one interview, Sonja mentioned that one of the significant influences for this short was The Blackbird by Norman McLaren.
Here on her site you can find some sketches, storyboards and designs for this film, as well as explore Sonja’s other works.