More on the Nicktoons Festival, part 1
I Tivo’d the entire Nicktoons Festival this weekend, and I’ll be offering my thoughts on the dozen or so nominated shorts that were produced using Macromedia’s Flash software.
I’ll start with ‘Robot Family,’ a short created by Chris Harding, and his pals Chad Strawderman and Jeff Barfoot at Goldhouse Creative. I’ve seen Chris’ work before, and I especially like ‘Make Mine Shoebox,’ a series of video greetings Chris, according to his site, produced for Hallmark to screen at corporate gatherings.
‘Robot Family’ seems to be part of a series of shorts that Goldhouse Creative is assembling. The episode included in the festival can be seen (well, almost) in an earlier stage of development on the robotfamily.com site. The short was once titled ‘Phone Sales,’ but the version in the festival has been renamed ‘The Slick Salesman.’
The Nicktoons site doesn’t list this is a Flash production in their notes, but the ID card preceeding the the short does (that’s why I didn’t include this in my Festival write-up earlier in the month). It looks as if Goldhouse is also using 3D software to generate the minimalist, blueprint-esque backgrounds. It’s a unique blend of design ethics – the robot’s world is very exact, colorless and dull. The robots, on the other hand, are bursting with color, fun timing, and loose, playful design.
The show is, as the title suggests, about a robot family, and in this short, the brood is in the middle of dinner when the phone rings. Dad answers, and winds up in an all-too-familiar, one-sided conversation with a fast-talking salesman. The dialogue editing is very tight, and this is where the laughs really kick in. It’s a short short, but the timing is spot on, and the performances are understatedly clever. There’s no big story here, no twists or surprise endings – it’s about the performances and simple, stylistic designs. I was left wanting more, which I guess is a good thing, especially when it looks as if that’s the team’s plan.
