The Sounds Of Earth

With Voyager 1 swooping into view to kick start proceedings with a bang, it may comes as a surprise that the voyage of the 1970s space probe worked meerly as the ignition needed for a cutthroat examination of the human species itself.

A Small Blob Of Ice Cream's race against time here was a brilliant subversion of the genre, a darkly comic misanthropic celebration of the lust to kill and conquer those who are deemed different and therefore inferior.

Several shots had me wide eyed in awe such as the tractor beam. Wow. The aliens were incredibly well modeled and I loved the script throughout, with the language barrier that those from another world would have being brilliantly conveyed by some fantastic gargling 'voice' work.

Sound design was possibly my favourite part of this ditty with futuristic, metallic, scientific and alien sounds presenting a glorious pitch perfect outer space soundscape to proceedings.

Personally, I loved the purpose of racing to achieve the goal here, and the resolution had me chortling. I think a very minor thing for me was that the two protagonists didn't really feel differentiated until the very end of proceedings, and I do wonder if some slight conflict there could have elevated this further, but I loved it nevertheless.

Story: 4/5
Technical: 4.5/5
Elements: 3.5/5
Overall: 4/5

This is such a cute film! The characters are absolutely adorable, from the shoulder angle shots to the butt cracks to the quick and funny dialogue to the perfectly timed jiggling to the hilarious sound effects (I can only find myself imagining how those were made!). The space animation (drawings on the probe and earth, etc.) were awesome and must have taken a lot of work and time. Great detail and very cool range of motion. Hamish was beautifully animated and he definitely tugged at the heart strings, which was wonderfully balanced with the dad's annihilistic humour and the son's compassion. I really loved this film. It was my choice for City Winner. P.S. the intro is super cool as well!

I was concerned we may not get any animated films in chch this year so it was really good to see you save the day on that and make an instant finalist just for being crazy enough to do it, fantastic stuff.

Your sound design was immaculate, a well deserved win there. Great setting, great shots and great character design - always impressed to see how solo competitors design their characters strategically so they can save time in the animation room and still deliver unique characters, you did this really well!

Now we just need a crossover special where this alien duo throws down with Ukta the great and powerful.

*Utka
Can someone pls give us the ability to edit our reviews.

Super impressive animation, a deserving win for sound design, and a great premise which maaaaaybe doesn't stick the landing.

The quality of the animation alone here secures its place in the city finals, while there are noticeably some time saving tips and tricks here (the characters not having mouths, the objects MOSTLY consisting of simple shapes), the difference is that these shortcuts are completely justified by the story, and this is a tried and true technique in 48Hours whether you're animating or not - use your limitations to tell the story.

The story here is one that certainly starts out very compelling, I love the concept of using the golden record, I love the idea that humans are already wiped out - and I love the head-to-head the dad alien and the baby alien come to, where the baby wishes to save Hamish while the dad wants to destroy him.

It just feels like the solution here should have been a compromise that completes both character arcs, but really it looks more like the Dad alien just got his way - I think I was a little turned around by Hamish being a robot as well, I was half expecting the robot to reveal it was carrying a human baby named Hamish or something like that. I'm not here to spitball, suffice to say I just know that this team (person) is capable of some of my favourite endings in 48Hours history, and this time the other penny just didn't quite drop.

Things you got right: Fantastic animation, fantastic premise, fantastic sound design, an embracing of the elements that I love to see in the comp.

Things to work on for next time: The last thing you need Andrew is my advice, so I'll just say I look forward to your next entry :)