5.1 – Review and critique a short film production

Review of one or more short films

SHORT FILM REVIEW _ ' Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 3 (Love)' By Becky Sloan and Joseph Pelling. BLINK INDUSTRIES PRODUCTION.

• The Don't Hug Me I'm Scared series follows a theme of criticising children's media, through symbolism. This particular episode follows the theme of love, marriage and religion. This feature follows the ideas that television shows condition children to do things a certain way and restrain them from being unique. Each episode follows a culprit, this time the butterfly, that leads the puppets astray. 
• The messages and symbolism is displayed throughout the theatrical and bold soundtrack (by Joseph Pelling) :

• Firstly the butterfly forces emotion, telling Manny, the yellow puppet, that 'everybody hates you and no one cares' then saying that ' if you follow me, maybe you will see that love is everywhere' which symbolises how the media can sway children and grab their attention and trust through happy voices, colour and animation. This has been used to emphasise the dark side of children's media and their greed.

• Also, when Manny begins to name things that he loves, he is interrupted and told that you 'must save your love for your special one', introducing the theme of marriage and how love is shown to children. This suggests that love is conditional and you can only love certain things. 
• Manny also says ' even me, but i am lonely' which proves how children trust what they watch and Manny has been forced to believe that he is lonely and that he is being brainwashed.
• when the puppets explain love, they say it is 'perfect' and 'pure' and 'lasts forever', all things that aren't often true, giving children a false representation of love, and how marriage and religion imply these things. The writer's have also used irony, as they suggest love is 'like a flower that grows and grows' which is untrue.

• The feature also introduces ideas about conditions of love such as ' he's made for her and she's made for him, thats the way it's always been.' Suggesting that the media has anti-gay reviews of love. This is further emphasised by the condition 'and it's protected with a ring' which implies that love is only able with marriage, and should only be between a man and a woman. 
• Understandably, Manny still doesn't understand the complex conditions of love, so the butterfly introduces 'The Story of Michael', a beautiful 2D animation, explaining that Michael is the 'ugliest boy in town' and that he 'lives on his own underground' symbolising that if you are ugly, you will never find love, which interrelates with the ideas that the media shapes young audiences into the 'perfect' people. 

• Finally, The character 'King Malcolm' is introduced as the 'king of love' which is also a name used to describe Jesus Christ, and emphasizing the ideas of the Christian religion. The puppets must also 'feed' Malcolm and if they don't 'he becomes angry'. `Manny is then dressed in religious or cult-like robes and told he must 'change his name' and 'clean your brain' clearly symbolising he is physically brainwashed, and how quickly he has become controlled and victimised. 

• When Manny wakes up, his friends are their, and say 'it must be because we LOVE you' which displays the creators ideas that love is unconditional and their are no limits to how much or little you want to love.
• I particularly enjoyed the use of set design in the feature, as with all of Becky Sloan and Joseph Pelling's works, they show pure effort and quality in their productions. The use of materials, to make the friendly and warm settings is used, along with the fabric puppets, to replicate the set of a children's programme. The use of fabric set design, also heavily contrasts with their use of actual materials, such as the raw meat and the crab. This hints at the bazar and unique themes that Becky and Joe use. 

• I also love the relations between animation and live action. Although the puppets and sets were manually created, the use of 2D, 3D and stop motion animation, brought the themes to life, and were emphasised through the catchy soundtrack. The clouds and heart beating were just some of the clever uses of animation, as well as 'The Story Of Michael', that had a beautiful and aged 2D drawing inspired visual (by Joe Pelling, Daniel Britt, Andy Baker and Gustaf Georg Lindstrom), that was both eery and creative, and brought the truth of the feature forward.  The use of stop-motion (by Robert Morgan), also added a glitchy and creepy element to the visual, which is displayed in each DHMIS. The production design itself is also of a really good quality and shows the creative talents of Becky and Joe, who have done other works such as Tame Impala's 'feels like we only go backwards' stop motion video, and short features such as 'Lost Coin' and 'The colouring'.

• Along with the soundtrack, use of arts and set design, and writing, Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 3 beautifully displays the creator's negative opinions of how children's media influences children (in terms of love, religion and marriage in this episode), through the use of animation, song and visuals, that a maturer audience can understand as well as adding quality humour and quality.

All images used belong to the creators and BLINK industries.