Mark Craste’s Pica Towers Trilogy creates a disturbing glimpse of an apocalyptic robot world. These animated shorts are incredibly successful at creating mystery, intrigue and drama in a brief amount of time. While the overall aesthetic is predominately dark and foreboding, there is still a lot of dynamics in the composition. With different shades and textures to create a fully-developed world.
The characters themselves while robotic and mechanical have a lot of emotion and personality, which is represented in the smallest details and animation: from the pimples on the pizza delivery driver to the cross antenna on the bible-thumping TV.
The animation felt very cinematic because of the wide range in camera angles and movements. The recreation of pans, tilts, zooms and crane shots made the shorts feel less like cartoons and more like film.
Also, the audio mixer/editor/recorders should be winning massive awards for these shorts. Bad audio can kill a film on any level, but especially in animation, especially when there is no dialogue. However, these shorts have expert audio tracks. From the smallest detail of footsteps to the large scale audio representation of the blind robot falling down the stairs, Pica Towers tells a tale with sound effects. They perfectly match the visual tone, and the realness of the sounds contribute to the overall cinematic effect.
It seems that every technical detail is perfectly executed in this trilogy and the effect leaves you wanting more. The story itself is disturbing and intriguing, but it’s the success of the execution that really makes these films succeed.
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