Pixar Review 26: Day and Night

I hope you guys enjoyed my review of Up, my favorite movie.  It was difficult to write but I did my best.  Now for a nice breath of fresh air let’s appreciate Pixar’s delightful animated short Day & Night.

In many ways this short feels like some of the early shorts because it is more special because of the methods they used than the short itself, although the short is charming.  It’s more like a Red’s Dream or Tin Toy where they were clearly stretching their artistic and technical capabilities and trying something new.

The new experiment was not just a hybrid of 2D and CG but telling stories with both mediums in the same shot.  It’s really quite brilliant.  2 years later we would get the  hybrid film Paperman but that’s more of a meshing of the 2 instead of them existing separately within the same story.  For people that are down and depressed about the loss of 2D animation (I know many of you readers are) you should take heart at things like Day and Night.  It’s sign that while we may not see the 2D film from Disney anytime soon a hybrid using both techniques is certainly possible and I think quite likely.

Anyway, Day and Night is directed by Teddy Newton and it stars 2 creatures, one is Day, one is night.  We know this because we can see the world in their bodies from their unique perspectives.

At first they are kind of fascinated by what’s going on in the others world.  Then they become envious and frustrated, even angry at the things they don’t have.

They are also very boastful of the things they have especially Day.

But they also learn they can work together and both enjoy experiences like when Night allows Day to enjoy a drive in movie.  The movie on screen is the cowboy scene the puppies are watching in 101 Dalmatians.

The sound design and mixing by Barney Jones and Tom Myers is first rate in Day and Night.  What’s really neat is the way the 2D and 3D worlds are connected.  For instance, when Night is punching Day each punch is coordinated perfectly with a logger chopping down a tree with an ax. Then when the tree is toppled Day falls to the ground along with the tree.

What’s so lovely is the creatures go from envy, to teamwork, to seeing life from the other’s perspective and that I think is the true message of Day and Night.  In fact, Dr Wayne Dyer appears as a voice from a radio tower ending with the thought:

“You know, to me, the most beautiful things in all the universe are the most mysterious.”

I like the message and it’s not as heavy-handed as you might think because it is split up into small bits.  And I like the idea of walking in another’s shoes before judging them.  It’s so important especially in this day and age.

And it looks so lovely.  One of my favorite sequences is them battling out Las Vegas which of course looks better at night!

I guess if I was to nitpick the oogling over the bikini clad women I Could do without, but it’s not a huge problem for me.

Michael Giacchino did a great job with the music and having just enough of it to be effective without getting in the way of the sound effects.

Is it my favorite Pixar short?  Probably not but I really do like Day and Night.  Definitely worth seeing and I hope we see even more hybrid and 2D elements in future Pixar shorts and films.

Overall Grade- B+