Nov 8th ’20 – “Awkward”

I came across Nata Metlukh’s film “Awkward” online, and found it really creatively inspiring for a number of reasons.

My social anxiety has been at an all-time high lately, so the subject of this film resonated strongly with me. I loved how Metlukh showed mundane, every-day socially awkward scenarios (that I would wager most people could relate to), and did it in an entertaining way.

She also used techniques which highlighted the anxiety of the subjects, such as moving the camera in the first scene as the characters move, showing the unsteadiness and awkwardness the characters are feeling, and showing their perception that the whole world was moving / falling apart because of this sudden awkward interaction.

Also, when the two characters bump into each other, the image glitches, showing the shock the characters suddenly feel. This involves the audience in the scene and helps them empathise with the characters, and I love the unusual and creative way she visualised their feelings.

The way space is manipulated in the second scene with the lift is also excellent – We’re in the scene relating to the person in the white tshirt. Ideally we’ll arrive at the lift when the doors open. But the room seems huge, the lift feels miles away, and we’re walking and not getting any closer. The lift arrives and closes and we’re alone, and can now relax and take our time. We’re a more normal size now, our pace is normal. But the lift opens and now a stranger is waiting for us to get there. Panic strikes and we take hours to arrive, reduced to the size of a mouse running along a mile-long floor.

Everything about us is abnormal, while the stranger, who has remained totally unremarkable, innocently holds the lift. The way the feelings of the character in the white tshirt are so effectively communicated almost entirely by the portrayal of space and speed is very exciting and inspiring to me.

I also love the various ways in which speech is portrayed – in bubbles which are affected by their environment (blown away by the wind and noise of the hairdryer), by colourful clouds, and by bubbles of letters and words, which rapidly rise up to the sky to show that the character is embarrassed about them, and that they’re not being received.

This film reminded me that in my own work I have the ability to ignore the constraints of real life – I can manipulate the environment around the characters, I can change their size and speed within scenes, I can portray speech in a new way. It was very refreshing and reminded me that I have freedom in animation to be unconventional, and that communicating something in an unconventional way often means it is communicated more effectively.