IAT 343 Essay
Brianna Huxtable
301090026
Partly Cloudy and The ChubbChubbs
The two animated shorts that I will be comparing are Pixar’s Partly Cloudy and
Sony Picture’s The ChubbChubbs. Both of these shorts share a similar theme in that they
both have the main character become involved in a problem, which makes them sad
that they are not appreciated. Both of the storied resolve the conflicts by means that
are surprising by clever, which provides a happen solution to both.
Partly Cloudy was produced in 2009 as Pixar’s special feature to be included in
Pixar’s feature film Up and was shown in theatres before Up was released. Partly Cloudy
was included in Animation how of Shows 2009 as it used Pixar CGI animations. Partly
Cloudy is based on a third person story, where the audience is following everything
throughout the whole animation. The plot is linear, as it is based on storks that deliver
cute babies and animals from clouds to homes. Among the cute and cuddly clouds lies a
rain/thunder cloud that make vicious animals such as a crocodile. His stork that carries
the animals away keeps getting beat up by the vicious animals, which in turn scares him
away. This makes the rain/thunder cloud angry and starts crying (pouring) and lighting
bolts shoot out in anger. He finally then realizes when his stork comes back that he did
not leave him for another cloud but only to get help with protective gear. The characters
are very cute and cartoon like to represent playful characters of nature. The light rays
bouncing off the textures of the clouds and bird show how closely detail has been made
to depict the real thing. The animation of movement is also done very well when the
stork fly’s through the air and is gliding ever so gently as if it was the air pushing him.
Sony Picture’s The ChubbChubbs was made in 2002 and won best Animated
Short at the London Effects Animation Fesitval. The ChubbChubbs is based off of first
person mainly focusing around Meeper, the main character. The plot is about Meeper,
who works at a bar cleaning up. He is kicked out of the bar when he electrocutes the
singer when he is fooling around. Meeper then comes across a alien, who is out of
breath and exhausted from running. He tells Meeper that monsters are approaching and
he should warn everyone. In Meeper’s attempt to warn everyone he fails as nobody
listens. When someone else finally tells everyone Meeper is left to protect the cute
fluffy creatures that are left. When the monsters come the little cute fluffy things
transforms into the ChubbChubbs who are evil and eat the monsters, but when they are
down transform back into their cute balls of fur. The lighting in ChubbChubbs is a lot
darker and mysterious which can make some scenes harder to see but also intriguing.
The movements of the monsters were very well done with the shadows accentuating
their big motions. To compare the two films, the movements in ChubbChUbbs are
defiantly more harsh and quick where as Partly Cloudy is more graceful and swift.
ChubbChubbs has lots of sound effects and dialogue but Partly Cloudy has no dialogue
and only sound/background effects. Both shorts are very similar in the way the are
presented and the main themes, but both have unique approaches to how that are
animated and visually styled in terms of storytelling.
References:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6umzWF8pbL8&feature=related
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partly_Cloudy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO3tscCAVJ8
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChubbChubbs