Big Muddy Film

Fatal Vittles

Devin Bell

A dark and whimsical alphabet piece about 26 things to never ever eat.

• SCA   Sat 2/23 1pm    Animated Shorts

USA   4 min   ANI

Fatal Vittles is a humorous two-dimensional cartoon about twenty-six different things you should not eat. It is set to music, which adds to the hilarity. The design of the characters in the film appears to be vector based, and have clearly outlined edges.

The film also features an interesting choice of colors. The majority of the elements in the piece are gray scale  with just a few objects of importance slightly colored to draw the audience’s attention to that element. The background is not a solid color, but rather a series of light and dark lines that darken or lighten depending on the mood of the scene. The textured background helps to keep the piece from being too boring without adding additional elements to the scene that would make it too busy. It also is an interesting way to take up some negative space without getting rid of it entirely. There is nothing important going on in it, but it is not left completely blank either.

At the beginning of each ‘fatal vittle,’ the subject that is about to eat something they shouldn't is in or near the center of the frame. The surrounding environment varies from scene to scene, but generally there is more than one layer of animation, giving a sense of depth to the scene. This depth helps to draw the audience into the film, rather than just watching a flat animation.

 The animation of the characters is all done in time with the lyrics of the song, though not necessarily to the beat of the music. The narration of the events taking place on screen works well to help the viewers fully understand what exactly is happening in the film. Some of the animations are over-done to really emphasize a particular point in the piece.

Overall, the graphical elements in the film really help to get the story across successfully and fit the style of the story perfectly. At certain points, the graphics may not be especially pleasing to the eye, but they fit because that part of the story is not supposed to be pleasing either. The graphics give the audience a sense of discomfort for the character on screen while simultaneously keeping the humorous spirit throughout the piece.