Years of working in a major city eventually resulted in me developing a wariness of umbrellas and more specifically, a fear of having my eye poked out by one while walking on a crowded sidewalk on a rainy day. Looking at the preview for Pixar's new short The Blue Umbrella, I'm actually a little hopeful that Pixar's six-minute short might help assuage my discomfort around these menacing devices. If not, at the very least, the short looks very sweet.
The story for The Blue Umbrella focuses on a blue umbrella that falls for a red one, but the two umbrellas are soon separated by forces of nature. The clip below comes courtesy of The Wall Street Journal, and gives us a look at what appears to be the first encounter for these two umbrellas.
With the Toy Story films alone, Pixar has made great stories from inanimate objects, so I have no doubt that they can turn the story of two umbrellas into something charming and maybe even moving. WSJ says part of the story involves objects on the street coming to life to help them reunite.
I think it's interesting to note that the umbrella's faces are basically simple smileys, but the rainy day scene around them looks anything but simple. We get a sample of that in the depth shown from the umbrellas in the front to the ones in the back, and the slick look of the wet umbrellas and drops of rain caught on the edges of them. From what director Saschka Unseid told WSJ, they were aiming for a photorealistic look to emphasize the magic of the city coming to life...
A central part of the story is the idea of unexpected corners of the city coming alive, such as constructions signs and a post office mailbox. Unseld said it was necessary then to give the film a photorealistic look. “If we made it stylized and cartoony, the magic of those things coming to life would be completely gone,” he said.
It looks great so far. Now we'll have to wait a few months to see the rest of it. The Blue Umbrella is set to show in front of Monsters University, which arrives in theaters June 21, 2013.
