Producer Kristina Reed met with us briefly after our viewing of the film short, Paperman. Paperman is being debuted prior to the film, Wreck-It Ralph which is in theaters right now. After 14 months of squeezing time in between the feature films at Disney Animation studios, the short was made. A really unique feature of Paperman is that the director, John Kahrs, blended together hand-drawn animation techniques with computer generation that really gave the black-and-white short a glimpse into past techniques that are almost forgotten. The imagery created really helped to tell the story and even brought a tear to my eye and a flutter to my heart.
Even though no words were spoken, you could feel the tension between a couple who met for the first time at a train station. It is a classic boy meets girl, girl meets boy, both think about saying something to each other, but then they miss their chance as the train pulls away leaving the couple wondering, “What if.” However, as luck would have it, the young man spies her from afar in a nearby building. He spends the rest of the short trying to grab her attention with a stack of papers. You will have to go see Wreck-It Ralph at a theater near you to see if the young man meets the girl of his dreams.
Kristina stated that, “We feel honestly like it’s somewhat our responsibility as one of the premiere in animation houses and certainly the house that invented this art…to put new visual looks out into the world for– for other artists to respond to.” so, I believe that more films like this one are in our future. The blend of the hand drawn and CG techniques truly added to the movie going experience and drew the watcher into the film. Kristina expains how the CG contributes in Paperman, “Well, what CG has that hand drawn struggles with is a feeling of depth. Like you feel like you can step into the world. You feel like they’re running on real sidewalks and down real streets. And, you know, the– the way the light hits them. And you feel like there’s actually volume to those characters. They don’t just feel like, um, two-dimensional paper. So, I feel like we’re very much sort of pulling the best out of both art– art forms. But, um, like I feel like you could step into that world.”
I implore you to go see for yourself, then come back and tell me what you thought!
