Burning Safari

From the 3D World showreel. It’s Monkey vs Robot Aliens in this high-speed short from a group of talented young French students determined to bring the energy of 2D animation to their first 3D animated project.

Who knew that when the aliens came, they wouldn’t be little green men but boxy little shutterbugs? In Burning Safari, a toon-inflected 3D short from a cohort of students at leading French animation school Gobelins, the aliens are on a photo outing. It is their misfortune to encounter a curious monkey just after landing. Chaos ensues, and as so often happens when worlds collide, things end extremely badly for all concerned. At least in this case, the consequences are as hilarious as they are hideous.

VITAL STATISTICS
Running time: 1:45
Budget: None
Funding sources: Self-funded
Time taken: Six months
Software used: Maya, Illustrator, Flash, Photoshop, After Effects
Hardware used: "Our brains and some big machines."
Public screenings: Annecy 2006, France

SYNOPSIS
Robot alien day-trippers learn the hard way to stay away from a certain monkey

LOOK OUT FOR
00:04 The spaceship drops out of the sky
00:16 The shutterbugs do what they do best
00:24 Something different
00:43 A 2001: A Space Odyssey moment
01:21 It burns!
01:26 BOOM

SEE ALSO
FLCL (2000) Gainax

Click here to download (~16MB)