We had to watch a set of three short animated films collectively called Pica Towers. These were visually rich pieces with a strange and gripping narrative that were connected by the location. Different techniques were used to create these stories.
sound
Sound in these shorts is excellently done. When there is no dialogue, every ambient sound becomes the dialogue.
Parts of the films are told almost entirely with sound, like when the blind TV robot in Hound of Flesh falls down the stairs, the only things you see are a long shot of the stairs before he falls and his glasses askew after he falls and comes in the doorway. The rest of that sequence is heard.
You don’t see either the bible carrying TV robot or the dominatrix TV robot die in The Good News: you hear it happen, and the other characters hear it too and respond to it.
characters
I’d describe all the characters as cute in their appearance, which is part of what makes the narrative so dark. Cute things are associated with cute actions, not murder. By confusing our associations, it adds a sense of unease. The dog TV robot is a true dog, bumbling along in this bizarre building–taking the blind TV robot’s cane, lapping up the blood of the dead bible TV robot, eating the pizza of the delivery TV robot–where strange things and murders are going on all around.
Even the TV robot with the gun in Pizza Sangre (Blood Pizza?) is cute, with his gap teeth and antenna wobbling around.
perspective
There are a variety of camera angles and shots used as well. The first shot of The Good News is just two big glowing circles in a sea of black, and only when the camera pushes can you recognize a face, and then the rotation happens to show you this TV robot is hanging upside-down.
There are several incredibly long shots that work well. They give a sense of the size of the building all these stories are taking place in. In Hound of Flesh the camera pulls up and away inside the hallway the blind TV robot is walking down, revealing a lot of doors. In Pizza Sangre, the long shot pulling away from the delivery TV robot gives a sense of enormous scale.
Also in Pizza Sangre, the opening shot of the delivery TV robot driving is through a scope with crosshairs, clearly implying a gun. You think he’ll be shot while you’re in this perspective, but it isn’t until the long shot that he gets hit.
light
The Pica Towers shorts are all black and white, so light and shadow play important roles. It seems to be a generally dark place. The only light sources are the TV robots’ faces and a few lights in the rooms and hallways. Places that aren’t lit very well give a sense of unease, especially if you’re unfamiliar with the location. And these films should make you uneasy–there’s a murderer on the loose in this gigantic building.
Some of the visual style in this piece reminds me of the video game Limbo. It’s also black and white and kind of empty, but with a kind of beautiful atmosphere, and in it you are a boy looking for his sister. The game is surprisingly violent without actually showing too much detail. The boy is always in silhouette, but you see see him impaled or decapitated or crushed. Once you discover that the boy can be killed quite dramatically, it makes you uneasy about what might come around the next corner.
I liked the Pica Towers shorts. Watching them multiple times helped. They are packed with a lot of detailed information in a short time.