Thursday, September 4, 2008

the danish poet - chance, love, and joy

the national film board of canada has been a leader in the world of film making and particularly in the realm of animation for quite some time. it’s no coincidence that the films i can recall as having had the greatest impact on me from my school years were almost all created by the men and women at the nfb.

today i came across a short animated film that won an oscar in 2007 for best film shorts animation. entitled “the danish poet”, it is a story comprised of equal parts of romance and tongue-in-cheek humour. the whole is bound together by acknowledging the role that the wonderful caprice of chance plays in love and joy.

incredibly, this film was director torill kove’s second oscar nomination!

the technique used to create this film is called cell animation. this is a labour intensive and painstaking process that can mean a film such as this can take months or even years to complete. “the danish poet” was drawn in pencil on paper, then scanned and coloured digitally. the backgrounds were completed in the same fashion except the skies, which were oil painted by montreal artist anne ashton.




for more information about this film then you might like to visit the webpage for ”the danish poet”.

2 comments:

Goldenrod said...

Delightful. Absolutely delightful!

A touch less than five minutes into the film, there's a long line that sounds very similar to how I'm related to Greta Garbo! :)

steven said...

hi goldenrod, i am glad that you enjoyed it. it has an element of the shaggy-dog story about it and then the thread of chance that binds it all together. oh an the magical love stories sigh!!!
steven