SFotD: Disney’s Stunning Marriage of CGI and Hand-Drawn Animation in Oscar-Nominated ‘Paperman’

By  · Published on January 31st, 2013

Why Watch? Ah, sweet perfection. Not only is this short from Disney a gorgeous blend of two kinds of animation styles, it’s a perfect wedding of humor, romance and paper airplane folding. In it, a young man and woman meet at a train station, and after she rides out of his life, she re-emerges in a highrise window across the large city street from where he works. Armed with boring forms and goaded by a lipstick kiss, he risks his job (and a major fine for littering) trying to catch her eye.

This is classic Disney magic at its peak. Soaringly well-crafted, it’s magical realism in service of sweetness that should cause a few hearts to swell. With Paperman, director John Kahrs and his team created an endearing throwback to the silent era and used some simple Vaudevillian storytelling to wordlessly reward a man in love for his persistence and a woman in love for her charming curiosity.

What will it cost? Only 6 minutes.

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