Zippo – ES GIBBT FÜR EIN ERSTES MAL (Zippo – there is a first time for everything)
Directed by : Christiane Scheibe, Janett Bergner, and Dagmar Ammon. Germany, 2009, 1:16
Source: Vimeo
Simply put, this film is about a blue dragon, who I believe is called Zippo, and a Christmas tree. After they meet, the dragon and Christmas tree decide that the candles on the Christmas tree should be lit however, they run into a problem when the reach the final candle on top of the tree. The dragon decides to just puff fire as hard as he possibly can and accidentally burns up the entire tree.
What originally attracted me to this film was when I was searching through Vimeo’s german short films group (link) and noticed a claymation work that was posted there. While I have never been a major fan of claymation I decided to take a quick look at it to see what it was about and fell in love with it. With it’s simplistic story yet great punch line, it keeps the viewer interested and doesn’t drag it’s simplistic storyline on too long. However, if there was one suggestion that I would have for it is that I think it should have been a bit longer than it was. While I don’t know what I would have added personally, I think that it could have been another 30-45 seconds long. Anyways, overall this video was something that I really enjoyed accidentally bumping into.
Something that I do think I should point out with this film is the fact that it is a claymation and that it follows one of my personal rules of short films. That rule is K.I.S.S. or Keep It Simple Stupid and I think that most short films that attempt to do complicated things can sometimes fall flat on their face. However with shorts such as Zippo, the simplicity in them create a short and fun joke that almost anyone can enjoy because of its simplicity.
4 comments:
Loved the minimalist design. The colors popped against the white background. The characters are unique: dragon and Christmas tree? (Also, did anyone else think that it might be slightly crazy for a Christmas tree to be lit with candles, anyway? Hello, fire). The claymation reminded me of the old claymation Rudolph the Red- nosed Reindeer cartoon I watched as child.
I am glad that they made the colors vibrant, like Tyler mentions. It is sad when animators choose to make fantastical characters dull shades of brown and black to make them more 'real'.
cute! i like the concept and color combination.. but as Tyler mentioned, it was weird though, christmas tree and candles.. it surely gets into fire.. but the way it presented was cute.
I found this short very refreshing. It made me think about the claymation Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer movie and how much I loved watching that every christmas growing up. I loved the simple story line and the "oops, oh well!" ending of this adorable short.
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