You see this cute bunny and you can not help you self being happy. It has the right elements of cuteness. In this article I look at the short film Big Buck Bunny, and see what works in it, and what dos not.
Big Buck Bunny is a film about a big bunny, and he gets bullied by three squirrels. He really likes flowers and butterflies. The squirrels kill a butterfly and Buck runs in terror into the forest. Here he decides that the squirrels should have taught a lesson, and starts making traps. Buck gets his chance to get revenge. He beats all the squirrels with the leader as the last one. The leader was falling towards some sharp wooden poles but Buck actually saves him. To teach him a lesson he makes a dragon out of him. Because he is a flying squirrel. It is a 3D comedy film.
What I liked about this film is that I feel with the main character. I feel pity, and I want him to win over the squirrels. Buck is a great character, and cute choppy bunny. Who would not like that? He is way bigger than the squirrels so if he was a bit more of a man they would properly be scared of him. But because he has a gentle personality they have the chance to bully him. Whenever a film wakes some feeling in me, it must be doing something right. I liked the contrast between it being a cute film, but the squirrels being really mean, and actually killing a butterfly brutally with a rock. This might not be a kid's movie.
The story is pretty simple, but well told with the visuals and sounds. There is no place where you are confused about what is going on. The visuals are used to enhance the story for example in the clip where the butterfly is killed, they use a tilted camera for the shot, which gives it a more dynamic and action packed feel. The facial expressions are used to make the audience feel with the character, and whenever the character are having some big reaction or action we have a close up of the characters head. This also helps with the audience connecting to the characters. There is no dialog in the film, and it is not necessary the body language and expressions tells the story. The music and visuals are just enhancing it. The music is well used, very clever and adds to the feel of the movie. The most important part in the film is the animation.
On the technical side the film is made in a program called Blender. It is a free open source 3D program. The film was financed by the blender foundation and donations. It was made to developed blender in the fur and character animation area. The film is open source which means that you can buy the DVD and get all the files for the movie. The team behind it is nine of the best blender users from the blender website. They were handpicked and asked if they wanted to do the project. As far as I recall it is a thing blender does every year.
With this said I believe there are some areas in the movie which could have been done better. The character designs are very "CG typical look", they didn't really try some new styles or moods. So in this way it is not very original. The story is a bit weak, in the same way as the character designs, the story is very genetic, it is a cute story but there is nothing new and exciting in it. The only place I got surprised was when the leader squirrel shows that he can fly. But it did not really mess with the perception of the story, and the story could have been without this small detail and still be as good. On the technical side the fur would have been better, and the forest looks a bit to computer made. I kind of get the feeling that everything is made on a computer and not real. And the best thing is when you forget it is made on a computer and can concentrate more on the story.
Overall I think it is a decent short film. The idea behind it is great and I really like that all the files are open source. It shows that you can do a lot with simple tools.
If you have not see the short film take a look at it on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSGBVzeBUbk
