Aardman’s Pearce Sisters has been passed over for an Oscar nomination, so the short has been released online. I’m not sure how that works; I know that for a short film to be considered it must either premiere in a theater (in LA County, per the rules) or win a gold medal at an approved festival before it is exhibited anywhere else, but I believe that’s already happened. At any rate, I’m very glad to finally see it, poor quality though it is.

(via Cartoon Brew.)

Notes and background info at pearcesisters.co.uk.

The film’s technique relies on some very peculiar 2/3D combinations. Director Luis Cook describes it as a kind of self-rotoscoping: setting up shots in 3D, printing out the frames and drawing details and facial expressions over them, then re-importing the 2D work back into the 3D. Some animated textures were added, and it was all comped together.

The result is definitely both 2D and 3D. The hold cycles of the 2D are clearly visible; so is the precise depth of the 3D. In fact, the 3D sticks out a bit; every other aspect of the piece is so old-school and grungy. It’s difficult to dirty that essential 3D-ness up at all, especially in an otherwise thoroughly expressionistic world. That would involve some intentional perspective- and shape-skewing.

Other interesting details: The piece contains 180 shots. The visual design is influenced by artists such as Ben Nicholson and Alfred Wallis, who founded the St Ives artists’ colony in Cornwall, the south-western-most tip of England, in the late 1920s.

Oh yes, and it has a plot, which is nice. Very similar in tone and content to Snow-Bo. Frankly — though I feel a boor to say so — the effect of the visuals so thoroughly overwhelmed the plot that I believe I’d have preferred nine minutes of fishing, and other quotidian, littoral tasks. This is certainly because I grew up in a bucolic seaside town, and since moving to the city have grown to loathe the elaborate, all-engrossing civilization I once craved.

Keep up the good work, Luis!

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