First Contact is a short film that I worked on for most of 2023, and finished early 2024. It follows the life of a man who gives everything to achieve his goal of contacting aliens. This is also sort of a teaser animation for a show that I'm working on, based on the two aliens at the end.
I thought the end would tie up the story of his father ("Say Hi to them from me") and his own family, especially since he seem to be rather estranged from his wife and son, even though they were there on his big day.
The final joke was good, but seemed a bit out-of-nowhere, and therefore unfitting to the rather serious tone of the submission so far. But I liked the animation nonetheless, a bit rough sometimes, but a touching story told in a very capable way.
That's interesting, because the final joke being out of nowhere and unfitting is exactly what I was going for. It's supposed to slap you in the face. The point of the animation is to turn the character's dramatic, emotional life story into an ultimately cheap gag to introduce the two aliens at the end. If you view the serious aspect as the primary goal though, I get why it would seem jarring.
the animation feels a bit inconsistent and is pretty ugly in some parts, but overall pretty good.
wow, cool story
errybdy got dem peckkkks
It's all so serious until the very end... Even if the style did feel more comedy related from the very beginning (meatcanyon's influence?), I ended up expecting the whole thing to finish on a more serious note. It's a good joke, but I feel it would've worked even better as a full-on serious thing.
I'm aware I wrote "serious" way too many times in just three sentences. Fight me