Die Ein-Mann-Band

The short is so wonderful! I can not remember in what movie this short is in, but even now I can still remember the short. The graphics is superb, with great attention to details to the characters and scenery. Kudos Pixar! Even thought he short is very short (thus the term short, d'oh), it is very entertaining. When I watched his short in the cinema, the crowd enjoyed this short very much that the cinema roared with laughter. It almost felt like watching your favorite team scored a goal in a football game.

This is an experiment by Pixar. There are other shorts made by the animation giant like the short about a group of birds sitting on an electric wire, and another short about a bear (or is a penguin? Sorry, can't remember what it is actually) wanting to and find his girlfriend but ended up trapped in the snow globe. Both are two examples of the shorts made. Sorry though, because I forgot both the titles to the shorts I mentioned above.

Pixar, at least the preDisney Pixar, uses shorts as experiments. They've used them for new volume computation routines. Remember the birds squooshed together on a telephone line? Remember "Boundin'" which investigated the use of quickly changing space? This one is an amusement of course, they all are. But its reason to be what it is, is the opportunity to explore how characters define space. A problem with the type of 3D animation Pixar does is that the characters become harder. Their skin becomes more of an edge that separates them from their context. Human actors have ways around this. Digital puppets don't have this same possibility.

But they have others, and one of those is to be compound beings. But how to use this so the characters "read" well is unknown. So we have this experiment. As with all Pixar projects, its a triumph. Its more amazing when you know the problem they were solving.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

One Man Ban was an absolutely charming piece of work! The colors were vibrant and whimsical and the designs were cute and caricatured. I loved it from the moment it started until the very end! It's surprising it didn't win the Oscar; it was definitely better than the winner. I suppose the judges couldn't justify giving the same crew Oscar after Oscar after Oscar...

The story is about a pair of street performers locked in a competition to out-perform the other and win the golden coin of a little girl passing by. Their musical dueling was delightful and I can't even imagine directing a film where the whole script is music!

10/10

After its final credits, it continuous in your mind. the music. the characters fight . the coin. the fountain. and the feel to be part of film yourself. because it is ( almost ) perfect. no reason to explain why. but the emotion and smile and the young woman who could be an old one, the clothes of performers and the musical instruments are so...lovely than the animation is more than great or amazing. its simplicity and the care for each detail transforms it in one of memorable story about music, competition and ...the wise choice.

This animated short film tells the story of two street musicians, who engage in a spectacular battle of skills to try to win a child's gold coin.

The film is fun to watch, as the two musicians do everything they can and more to win the coin. Yet, the outcome of the battle is perhaps predictable, but what happens after that is not what I can predict. It is an interesting tale with a twist at the end.