Film - The Little Prince

Ya know how a "making of" film featurette shouldn't really make you actually cry? Yeah, well, this one got to Susan Omand...

It's maybe just as well I don't actually have Netflix. However, when doing a flick through my YouTube Subscribed channels to look for something interesting to share for our daily "news bit" here on /G-f, I came across this. I'm a sucker for interesting animation, as you've probably already gathered and, when this started to play I thought "ho hum, 'nother Pixar CGI cartoon clone" and was about to skip past it when I heard Jeff Bridges' voice. Now, he doesn't get involved with boring things in general, so I kept watching. Ohhhh.... it's beautiful.

This isn't the film trailer itself remember, it's actually a look behind the scenes at how they did the animation. Yes there's CGI to introduce us to the little girl (Mackenzie Foy) and her highly regimented mother (Rachel McAdams), and it's really well done, BUT there's also stop motion animation for the stories about The Little Prince that the old aviator (Jeff Bridges) tells the girl that really caught my attention. Stop motion animation is when real models and backgrounds are used and moved minutely between each frame of film shot. Only, this time, these models and backgrounds are covered in paper. Hand coloured, hand cut paper - basically some kind of papier mache but the detail is absolutely exquisite. The contrast between the clean, clinical CGI and these beautiful, natural handmade models will just serve to highlight the difference between the girl's reality and the opening of her imagination. I hope.

Someone watch the film on Netflix for me please, I don't think I could bear it if it was just mediocre after seeing this...



Image - IMDb