Inspiration for short films

Short films I like and may use for inspiration:

Geri's Game
Pixar:    

This short film appeared before the first Toy Story in cinemas and on sold copies. It is an animated short film lasting a little over 3 minutes long. It consists of an old man playing chess with himself but as two different characters in his personality. One wearing glasses showing him to be clever but more innocent as glasses are seen as a sign of intelligence but they also represent a disability in vision. The other simply doesn't wear glasses which shows him to be not as intelligent but without vulnerability as the character opposite. The man with the glasses smiles innocently, the same sort of smile you do when you have your school photo taken. The other smirks with a presence of a sinister personality. The colour of the chess pieces are also symbolic towards the characters and what they represent. The man when he is wearing the glasses is using the white chess pieces. This in comparison to the other mans chess pieces which are black. This represents the good and bad (The light and Dark) in all of us. I really like this short film as it has a really cheeky character to it in which the man with the glasses cheats even though he is supposed to be the "good guy". I presents the classic message that evil never wins and sometimes you need to fight fire with fire in order to come out on top.

For the birds
Pixar:

Again this short film is another pixar production. They do a wide variety of short films that usually air before films in the cinema of one of the studio's actual films. Again this short film provides a really good and simple message. To start off with we see a number of small birds landing next to each other on a telegraph wire, bumping into each other and arguing. They stop arguing when they see a much larger bird who seems to be a bit weird to them with its different feathers and weird chirps it makes from the end of the wire. The little birds make fun of the bird for being different but it doesn't understand and lands next to the smaller birds which drags the wire down, when the larger bird is forced off the wire by the little ones they are flung up into the air leaving there feathers behind. For most of the sequence we only have a long shot very long shots from the little birds from a direct 90 degree perspective. This never changes its almost like watching a play where you can only see the act from one angle. This eliminates the problem of breaking the 180 degree rule and means there is no longer a need for shot reverse shots. This makes the sequence easy to understand  especially for its younger target audiences.



Paper man
Disney:

One of the main reasons why I really like this short film is the story line. It does a very good job at making you feel good and inspired as a viewer. The Black and white gives it an old silent film feel to it, however only the colour red shows in this film as it symbolises love between the two characters. The film is designed to be very relatable to as many viewers as possible. It does this by taking two people with working class jobs of which one of them has a 'mean' employer, which by todays standards is pretty common to come by. The film is aimed at all ages as adults can relate to the relationship in the film and children like the film because of the playful music in the background and the visual cartoon style which Disney has really grasped at.