San Antonio Busy Kids

Photo credit: disneyvault.net

Before Disney showed us a preview of The Odd Life of Timothy Green during BlogHer, we had the chance to be completely charmed by Paperman, a new short set to release in November.

It’s a beautiful piece of storytelling with little romance, a test of fate and even some origami (okay, paper airplanes, but close enough). But it’s unique in that it recaptures the magic of hand-drawn animation and fuses it with computer generated techniques, mixing our modern aesthetics with our romantic ones.

The story follows George, a lonely young man working in mid-century New York City. One morning he has a chance meeting with a beautiful woman, Meg, and becomes convinced she is the girl of his dreams. His destiny takes a turn when, after being convinced he’ll never see her again, George spots Meg in a skyscraper window across the avenue from his office. Now he’s on a mission, and all he’s got is his heart, imagination, and a stack of papers to get her attention.

Using a minimalist black-and-white style, Paperman takes the best of both animation worlds, created using CG forms and animation that were then added to with hand-drawn 2D animation. The two mix, creating a level of beauty and emotion that calls back to what we grew up loving about classic Disney films.

Disney Animation Studios have lined up Paperman to premiere in November in front of the Disney feature Wreck-It Ralph (which we wrote about here). Check out some of the first images in Disney’s Vault. Enjoy!