If If audiences are in need of detox from big budget holiday animation indulgence (see Avatar, The Princess and the Frog, A Christmas Carol), then they will find it in Pachelbel Kanon, a traditional 2D/Flash animated music video by Walter Santucci and his colleagues at Evil Cat Land. The under-five minute short is a performance showcase for the song stylings of Detroit Illharmonic Symphony and its original arrangement of Johann Pachelbel’s classic composition. Similar in spirit to Disney mood pieces, such as Winkin’, Blinkin’, and Nod, Santucci’s Pachelbel Kanon features a lighthearted ‘monster jam downtown’ (as in, stylistically simple monster characters playing music against a culturally diverse urban landscape) with a distinctly contemporary feel. The film is a joy for all ages, and apparently for all species, as miniature white poodle Blanche Dubois Sharp demonstrated with her repeated enthusiastic viewings.
Presently, Santucci’s project continues its world tour. It will be showcased at Laemmle Theaters in Los Angeles during this month (December, ’09) and simultaneously at the Angelika Film Centers in New York and Dallas. Several PBS stations nationwide played the film earlier this year, and it also aired on Italian television for three consecutive months. Detroit film festival “Planet Ant” honored Pachelbel Kanon as an official selection as well.
- I can't actually remember the inspiration for the project other than stylistically the characters were inspired by sketches and doodles Jim Henson used to make when he was creating Muppet characters-which might explain any Muppet-type vibe the film might have.
- Beyond that, I just wanted to make a video to promote the new Detroit Illharmonic album and the project eventually materialized out of that. It took about 8 months to finish (in my spare time between paying jobs) and I used the production to figure out the techniques and styles I'm going to use to make my feature film-I wanted a simple style that could be animated quickly but I also wanted it to be hand drawn with relatively full animation. And I didn't want it to look like anything else out there.
- And though the film is set in Detroit, the backgrounds were made from photos I took in Mexico City, New York, Boston, Los Angeles (particularly the sign from the Dunbar Hotel on Central Avenue) as well as the beautiful Motor City.
- I was working at Duck Studios [in Los Angeles] at the time and they were extremely kind and generous and let me use their facilities to animate and do post production, etc.
- One weird little tidbit about the film-- I feature the number 313 in it a couple of times (it's the Detroit area code) and when I finished my final render, I looked over at the clock and it was 3:13 p.m. on March 13!
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