the monk & the monkey (2010)

Creators:

Director:

Brendan Carroll (co-director, storyboard)

Shant Ergenian(co-director, animator,)

Francesco Giroldini(co-director, animator, storyboard)

Music: Erez Koskas

Sound editor: Gadi Raz

Concept:

The name of this video is “the monk and monkey”, which tells a story about a boy who wants to become a monk. In order to become a monk, the boy have to finish the final task and prove himself that he can be a monk. The task seems easy, however, there is one enemy, a monkey. After a intense journey, the boy finally realize what is the true value of the task. The purpose of this short film tell us that sometimes, to become success does not means to gain something important, the point is that what the person paid or gave up.

Design:

As a short video, the designers make a very simple story. A boy with a dream to become a monk, climes up to a top of a mountain then fights for his destiny. So there are mainly two characters, the boy and the monkey. With a cartoon 3D style, both of them have a big head and little exaggerated eyes, combined with bright colors that make them looks lovely(3,4). For the background, the designers make most of the items quite simple and thick, like the stones, trees and leaves are all quite big(2). 

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 Edit/animation:

This motion graphic is a 3D cartoon. The camera use and the animation is really good especially for the face expression. In terms of the story, the setup is done in about 20 seconds and the main part begins with the boy finding the secret fruit(6) which grows on an ancient tree. With the back ground color and the atmosphere changing, designers suggest that the boy had patiently waited for a long time, when the time finally come, monkey jump out and grab the fruit while the boy going to take it(7). After that, the pace of the story begins to speed up. After running for a long winding distance, they reach a dead end(8,9). Suddenly, with the fear and carelessness, the monkey falls down. At the same time, the boy grabs the secret fruit and the monkey(10). It is like all the animation stopped at that point, however the music still goes very fast which shows that they get into a very dangerous situation, and also tell the audiences that the boy is facing a tough choice, to save the monkey or take back the fruit and let the monkey fall to death. With about several seconds’ hesitation, the boy finally chooses to save the monkey. Also the music stops for a while and then comes with a positive rhythmand make the audiences thinking about the meaning behind the story. Over all, the models, animation and music are perfectly matched with each other, although there are some small mistakes (like the ear in picture 11), the story is significantly good.

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