The Dam Keeper

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Movie
Original title The Dam Keeper
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2014
length 18 minutes
Rod
Director Robert Kondo
Dice Tsutsumi
script Robert Kondo
Dice Tsutsumi
production Megan Bartel
Duncan Ramsay
music Zach Johnston
Matteo Roberts
cut Bradley Furnish

The Dam Keeper is a 2014 American short animated film directed by Robert Kondo and Dice Tsutsumi .

action

A little pig that still goes to school also works as a dam keeper. Its job is to keep the windmill on the dam running, so that the city behind the dam is spared from a toxic cloud of dirt that regularly drifts down. The pig does its job reliably; however, the townspeople avoid it. Since it is always a little dirty, it is also mocked by its classmates.

One day the fox appears in town. He is a new classmate who also regularly draws drawings in a sketchbook. He is open to the pig, sits down next to it on the suspension railway and supports it with funny drawings when it is treated unfairly by the teacher. After the pig is bullied by two thugs in the school toilet, the fox helps him. Both paint the two students as jokes and the fox shows solidarity with the pig by rubbing stains on his fur with the charcoal.

A little later the pig comes to a giggling group of students, in the center of which is the fox. It realizes that the group is laughing at a picture of which it recognizes a caricature of itself and the words "Dirty P ..." ("Dirty shit"). The pig sees his trust in the fox broken, snatches the picture and flees. Later she cries in a playground and misses the windmill to keep going because of his grief. The cloud of dirt reaches the city and shrouds it in darkness. Storm is coming. The pig takes a closer look at the drawing and discovers that the fox is depicted next to him; the label is completely called "Dirty Pals" (Eng. "Dirty Friends"). It now rushes to the windmill, which is damaged by the storm, but after a while it can drive away the cloud of dirt and bathe the city in sunlight again. Shortly afterwards the fox stands in the windmill door. The pig is pleased to see him. It shows him the drawing and they both run around the mill, laughing.

production

The Dam Keeper result of the joint work as a director of that Pixar - Artdirectoren Robert Kondo and Daisuke Tsutsumi. Tsutsumi made his directorial debut in 2011 with the short film Sketchtravel , while Kondo had previously only worked as a set designer and animator at Pixar. At Pixar, they had worked together on the films Toy Story 3 and Monster Uni . The Dam Keeper was created as part of an agreement with Pixar that allows employees there to work on their own films at the same time, independently of their work at Pixar. In addition to other Pixar employees, mainly young animators, some of whom had just graduated, were involved in the film.

Main work on the film began in early 2013; the production time of the film was about nine months. The story is inspired by the fairy tale The Little Dutch Boy , made popular by Mary Mapes Dodge's novel Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates . The film consists of approx. 8,000 frames and was animated two-dimensionally with TVPaint. The painting effect was enhanced with Photoshop brushstrokes applied afterwards.

The narrator in the original is Lars Mikkelsen . The film does not contain any dialogues.

The film had its world premiere in February 2014 at the Berlinale 2014 . In March 2014, the film was shown for the first time in the USA as part of the New York International Children's Film Festival.

Awards

At the Berlinale 2014 , The Dam Keeper was nominated for a crystal bear in the Generation Kplus - Best Short Film section. The film won the award for Best Family Film at the San Francisco International Film Festival .

The Dam Keeper was nominated for an Oscar in the category Best Animated Short Film in 2015 , but couldn't prevail against love goes through the stomach . In the same year, the film received an Annie Award nomination for Best Animated Short Film.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Terry Flores: "Dam Keeper" Filmmakers Talk About Animated Short Oscar Nom, Leaving Pixar and What's Next . variety.com, February 10, 2015.
  2. ↑ Samantha Murphy Kelly: How 2 Animators Independently Recreated Pixar Magic . mashable.com, April 18, 2014.
  3. ^ McKenna Ferguson: Colorado State alumnus nominated for Oscar for work on "The Dam Keeper" . collegian.com, February 18, 2015.
  4. ↑ a b c Tracey Taylor: “The Dam Keeper”, a short animated film by a Berkeley studio, nominated for an Oscar . berkeleyside.com, February 17, 2015.
  5. ^ Charles Solomon: Embracing a Fantasy From Their Pixar Past . nytimes.com, Jan. 29, 2015.