Review: Dia de los Muertos

Near the end of October, my mom showed me this video that she found about Dia de los Muertos, and it turned out being a really well designed animated short, especially for being made by three college students. The video, named after the Mexican holiday, is a very interesting story about a girl overcoming grief and celebrating her mother on the Day of the Dead. The way that the story is told is really cool because it shows that a good story doesn't require a lot of exposition or talking to set up a plot that not only can be easily followed, but also invoke emotions, ranging from sadness to fear to happiness, all in three minutes.

In addition to the story elements, the animation work in this short helps amplify all the previously mentioned successes of the video. For one, the design of the characters is great. The range of expressions that the skeletons made throughout the story was impressive, and the girl, from her movements and behavior, to her expressive stylized facial features, made the characters look memorable, resembling movies by giant studios like Disney and Pixar. In the future of my own animations, I hope I'll be able to integrate all the cool things that were done with the characters here to make something great, too.

If there was one thing I thought was a bit weak in the video was the pacing; I understand the reasons the story went so fast, but I had to watch the video multiple times to fully see everything that was going on. In the context of this story, it was fine, but for most videos, it was a bit fast.

Overall, this was a really great short that really showed what just a few animators can do with a good idea and the tools and knowledge to craft it.

Video: https://youtu.be/-v4-1wFEzM0