On The 1st Day of Christmas...

… this blogger gave to the... 

... a tale for tugging heart strings.

On Christmas morning, generally I get woken up not by my alarm clock and whatever Absolute Radio have decided to play that morning, but the cat scrabble to be let in or out. This morning, the scrabbling came from inside my room, himself sleeping in a cardboard fruit and veg crate from the supermarket in front of my bedroom door/radiator, where he likes to toast his belly. Once the fluffy one has been dealt with, I got up and started putting my makeup on, getting ready for the day and giving me an excuse to put glitter on my eyes, all while watching bad Christmas day television and trying to caffeinated myself enough into being a functional human being. This year I watched Rise of the Guardians, which is a lovely film and I heartily recommend, but, it wasn't ideal because it makes me cry. I must have been a cold, cold bitch when I was younger because as soon as I hit thirty all sorts of things would make me cry, and I know I'm not along in the emotional switch on after thirty, because my little sister feels exactly the same way.

And, if you ever want to make me cry, bring up Dumbo, particularly as he's being gently rocked in the loving embrace of his mothers trunk, while she sings "Baby Mine" too him, do that and and I'll well up as quickly as if you handed me an onion to chop.

Which leads me to Lost & Found, my gift for the first day of Christmas...

Did you cry? I cried. I'm not ashamed. 

This beautiful piece of stop motion animation, starring a clumsy crocheted dinosaur unravelling himself to save fox, the love of his life, was directed by Andrew Goldsmith and Bradley Slabe, and produced by Lucy Hayes at Wabi Sabi Studios and pixel/melbourne.

The animated short, which was shortlisted for an Oscar in 2019 and has won numerous Australian animation awards including an Australia Academy Award, uses two incredible traditional and intricate crafts, one being stop motion animation, the other being the Japanese art of Amigurumi. A portmanteau of the Japanese word ami, meaning crocheted or knitted, and nuigurumi, meaning stuffed doll, amigurumi in the case takes of the form of dinosaur and fox, crocheted dolls designed by Samuel Lewis, with armatures by Scott Ebdon and crocheted by soft sculpture artist, Julie Ramsden to create the classic amigurumi style characters.

Normally, I'm not the hugest fan of amigurumi, or crocheted dolls in general. Less because of the characters their creators have made, they can be incredibly complex, intricate and beautiful, and more for the texture of the continuous crocheted stitches themselves. Lost & Found, however has me a little more enamoured of the traditional craft, apparently stop motion animation being an easy route to my heart.

"My heart!" coincidentally being the only note I placed in my drafted post back at the start of the year, other than the dictionary definition of amigurumi.

Lost & Found is beautiful and soft, and when even the water is hand animated (out of warped acetate, bubble wrap, hair gel and "personal" lubricant, so it was rigid enough to allow the animators to mould and capture splashes and waves on film), you can't help but see the beauty and skill it has taken to create such an emotive film which, at only a little over seven and a half minutes, will have take hour, days and months to create.

I thought this was something worth keeping hold of until Christmas, so I hope you enjoyed it.


Merry Christmas! Part two soon…


Link || Lost & Found (2018) || Website || IMDb || Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || YouTube || Vimeo
Link || Julie Ramsden - Soft Sculptor || Website || Instagram || Twitter
Link || WATCH: Oscar-Shortlisted Stop-Motion Short ‘Lost & Found’ Now Available Online by Jennifer Wolfe via AWN: Animation World Network

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Listening: God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - Hozier