The Animation Society of India will have a special screening of Academy Award winning animated short film – “The Lost Thing” (courtesy of Passion Pictures, the producers of the film) during Anifest India 2011 in Mumbai.
Synopsis:
A boy discovers a bizarre looking creature while out collecting bottle tops at the beach. Realising it is lost, he tries to find out who owns it or where it belongs, but is met with indifference from everyone else, who barely notice its presence, each unwilling to entertain this uninvited interruption to their day to day lives. For reasons he does not explain, the boy empathises with the creature, an sets out to find a ‘place’ for it.
Some interesting facts about the film:
1. The Lost Thing is a 15 minute animated short film based on the highly acclaimed picture book by the same name by multi award winning author and illustrator, Shaun Tan.
2. The film marks the directorial debut of both Andrew Ruhemann and Shaun Tan. it is narrated by Tim Minchin.
3. From final storyboards, it took a core team of 4 people (3 based in Melbourne and 1 in Edinburgh) just over 3 and a half years to produce the film.
4. It features over 74 individual characters and 22 computer generated sets.
5. The film was modelled, rigged, animated, lit and rendered in Softimage XSI 6.5 and composited in Nuke.
6. The sound design and foley is made up of over 1836 separate recordings and designs.
7. Shaun Tan provided textural references and actual painted textures along with detailed colour scripts to ensure that the animators could produce a true representation of the painterly style of the original work.
8. The film has been produced by Passion Pictures Australia. (www.passion-pictures.com)
9. The narrator – Tim Minchin, is a comedian, musician, composer and actor from Perth and is now based in the UK. He is one of Australia’s most successful performers.
10. The film has won numerous awards across the globe, including The Annecy Crystal (Best Short Film) in June 2010 and the Oscar for the Best Animated short at the 83rd Academy Awards in Feb. 2011.