"Jojo in the stars"

That's one of my favorite animated movies ever. It is a film done by Marc Craste, who is an animation director at Studio AKA in London. JoJo in the Stars is a story of love, self-sacrifice and jealousy played out against a black and white world. JoJo herself is a silver-plated trapeze artist, who was imprisoned by bad guys. Then a hero came to her life and rescued her; however, the bad guys recognized it early and tried to chase them. While escaping, the hero almost cost his life and had to become handicapped forever.

All the characters were created in CGI, using Softimage XSI and After Effects for postproduction. It emphasizes on the black and white atmosphere associated with dramatic lighting and computer-generated images. With almost no dialogue, audiences will be surprised by how much they would be into it, though firstly they'd just think of it as a very dark and bittersweet tale. And just because the story is very visual and easy to understand; in my opinion, the dialogue is not essential at all and will make the audiences feel distracting somehow. In addition, I think the background music is also done its best job to make the animation more impressive and brilliant, the story more memorable and the black and white atmosphere more interesting and expressive.


Awards

- BAFTA 2004 ~ Best Short Animated Film.
- Clermont Ferrand 2004 ~ Prix Du Meilleur Film D’animation
- Aspen Short Film Festival 2004 ~ Special Jury Prize
- International 3D Awards Copenhagen ~ Best Short Film
- Animasia SICAF 2004 ~ Short Film Grand Prize
- Bradford Animation Festival 2004 ~ Grand Prix
- Brief Encounters Festival 2004 ~ Best of British

** The movie in Youtube is just about 0:37 minute, while the real one is about 13 mins. So I think it'd better not upload it here since it can be a spoiler. But I recommend you go to: www.veoh.com and download it! It's totally free!