Beautiful animation style
A family's idyllic life is interrupted when the father is killed while defending the family from an intruding bear. Asserting victory, the bear moves into the house and assumes the role of father for himself. Once his foot is in the door, however, he finds himself implicated in a family dynamic he did not expect.
Another started as a senior thesis at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2008 and was completed at the California Institute of the Arts. All animation is colored pencil on paper, scanned into Photoshop and composited in After Effects. I currently have a giant box full of colored-pencil ends that I hope MoMA will consider taking for their permanent collection.
I haven't posted much on Newgrounds in the last few years, and I really hope people like this. Sorry it's so long, feel free to scrub through to the good parts :)
Beautiful animation style
so good
My father he killed me, my mother she ate me, right?
The tribes who sacrificed their youths to the tribal chief's son so he could eat their dried blood?
Am I on the right track?
What an excellent psychomythological romp!
Wow, you're going down an interesting track. I think my psychological approach was a lot more straightforward, mainly concerning putting up with abuse or just a generally tense/stressful home situation. The bear is maybe just more of a metaphorical foil to make that stuff feel a little more fantastic. I like where you're going though, much more interesting than whatever explanation I would give. Thanks for watching!
The art style is so perfect!
This is something that i never saw on Newgrounds, its preety creative.
I almost cried;-; I enjoyed a lot,keep the good work!
I saw this on your Vimeo page not that long ago, and was impressed with the animation as well as the plot, which, like a sad tale often does, drags you along for the ride to the bitter end.
Plots like this rarely go over well, but I think it was worth the risk: I ultimately liked it, even though most hunters wouldn't have dared to shoot a non-threatening bear so close to a minor.. maybe he didn't see him? Ah well, an O Henry ending always needs a hook at the end, and I felt this whole piece turned out just fine.
I'm glad you're posting your work to NG, you made a fan today!
Thanks man! I appreciate the feedback. I think my main fear with the ending was that I didn't want it to be cheap or sentimental. The introduction of the hunter character actually came way late in production (I had a different ending planned that was super corny). I wanted the end to be a little more cynical, but also wrap up the reign of the bear as father. I also meant for it to be like a weird injection of reality having this outside guy come in with no understanding of what this family had been through. I'm sure everything about the way the hunter shoots the bear is inaccurate though, like you said. I like to imagine that he was maybe acting in a rash way because he thought the kid was in imminent danger and wasn't tuned to the mood between the two. Or something :)
Thanks again for watching!!