Cartoon Brew TV #21: Together!

We’ve got a new short on Cartoon Brew TV today: Together! (2009) directed by David Sheahan. This was a thesis film created at Pratt Institute. David is participating in the comments section below so fire away if you have any questions. Also, be sure to visit his website TastyHand.com where he’s posted concept artwork and the original music that he composed for the film.

Here are director’s notes from Mr. Sheahan:

In the real world, you would never expect things to go well in the personal lives of bugs. You probably wouldn’t care. But this unhappy insect couple are fascinating and familiar. Yet at the same time, they are the squashably despicable stars of my film Together!

It’s fun and and traditional to hang a cartoon around a collection of gags and slapstick. I toyed with making that kind, but story drives this film. There is just enough symbolism in Together! to punctuate any gut reaction with a question mark. The main symbol is the television, representing the sinister side of the illusions that so often guide our lives. We all know that the glowing screens we watch make a nice, sticky trap.

It’s tricky to place my influences. Today, Madame Butterfly. Tomorrow, Meet the Feebles. So far, I’ve heard S. Clay Wilson. Amid mentioned Ralph Bakshi. I love late-Thirties and early-Forties American cartoons. I try not to imitate them though. That would bore me.

I benefited from getting to know New York animators while working on Superjail!, and from the talented students around me, all of whom I look up to in one way or another: Maya Edelman, Javan Ivey, Katie Cropper, Jake Armstrong, and Kat Morris (among many others). Thanks to all.