Thanks to Thomas, I got to know this absolutely stunning short animation. Its Dutch name is “Nu Ken Je Het Toch Al” (Now You Know It Anyway) and the language is Dutch. Don’t worry, the English subtitle is great. And for people learning Dutch, watching videos like this is amazing.
Although being a young studio, Polder Animation has produced very distinct 3D animated shorts. The first being Blik, in which they had to showcase their cel shading and nuances in movements to tell a story without facial expression. With “Now You Know It Anyway”, the cel shading technique goes to another level with awesome lighting & sketchy outlines. They create a charming tactile feeling for the film.
“Now You Know It Anyway” was created as a part of the Ultrakort initiative by The Netherlands Film Fund and Pathe. It was screened with the movie “The Smurfs” in all Pathe Cinemas in the Netherlands for its entire run.
The script is deceptively simple. At first, you’ll just see Robin trying to self her own stories but ending up telling her customer everything. But then you’ll notice other things:
Robin, who was very shy in ‘normal’ context, became so hyperactive and daring in her imagination. It shows how much the Polder team understands most storytellers, haha.
How vibrantly all the characters in Robin’s story came to life! The moment they appeared, you fell into “the story within the story”. The bright and rough visuals of the imagination set it apart from the rest of the ‘real’ world, give those characters their personalities, and later disappear the same way Silly String works. Brilliant!
Of course, who doesn’t want to know where babies come from? And at that moment Robin said so, the baby looked at her.
Last but not least, the ending is lovely and revealing. For me, it means that the reason we want to buy a story is not to know it, but to keep us company.
This blog was first published on Kuvva blog.
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