Research 9, the Short

The short 9 produced by Shane Acker depicts a rag doll named 9. It follows his journey through a post-apocalyptic world. In the animated short, characters are drawn into motion, but the director makes an interesting choice to not include dialogue. The viewer relies on the clicks and clacks of the characters in that scene to help enhance the film. Thus, make it easier to understand. Another big part of the viewer understanding the characters actions is through their facial expressions. Having no dialogue made it more difficult for me to understand. I anticipate that it may also be hard for others. The director also makes it clear that the rag dolls are the underdogs by placing them in raggedy and torn up clothes. This makes it seem like they had been through a lot or had a difficult time. Because this short was only around 7 minutes the viewer did not get an in-depth look into the characters. We got a surface level understanding of the characters and who they are. Shadows and lighting also play a big role in the composition of the short. This use of shadows and darkness intensifies the suspense. The shadows help make the landscape scene more erie.  When watching the short I felt that it was very choppy. One scene would end, it would fade to black, and then main character would be doing something completely different. The choppiness of the plot plus no dialogue made it extremely difficult to understand the first time watching. I felt like the short didn’t flow like a film but more like a bunch of clips just pasted together. Although this film was not my favorite, the professional like animations used are astonishing.



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