Last week, Pixar’s newest short film The Blue Umbrella debuted at the Berlin Film Festival. The first public audience was able to see the film and a few have given their reviews and thoughts about the film.
Based on one reviewer’s comments, it looks like the short is amazing, as the reviewer says one of the kids was crying at the end. Be warned, the review contains minor spoilers!
Pixar and Disney use short films to “exercise creativity”, as this post on the Official Disney Blog points out. At Pixar, anyone is free to pitch their ideas. They usually come from the story department but Saschka Unseld, director of The Blue Umbrella comes from one of the technical departments and brought a new visual style to his short film. Pixar Animator Catherine Hicks (who always tries to reply to your questions on Twitter!) reacted like this the first time she saw it: “I finally saw the finished Blue Umbrella today. Holy cow. It’s going to be hard explaining to my mom that it’s 100% CGI.“.
Short films not only let the studios find new creative forces and future directors but they allow them to experiment with technology and clearly, this is a style we’ve never seen in a Pixar film so it’ll be interesting to see!
Remember The Blue Umbrella will play in front of Monsters University when it hits theaters but the US premiere will be held a couple of weeks from now!
Thanks to the Pixar Post!