Rob Munday
Cinema, in any form, is in my eyes one of the most emotive art forms around. It holds a power to make us laugh, cry or feel fear unlike any other medium – yet quite often we overlook the power of a film to bring simple joy into our lives. Providing a heady reminder of the intoxicating merriment short films can deliver in their brief duration is Gervais Merryweather’s National Film & Television School animation Buy Buy Baby – a playful romp through the New York Stock Exchange with an inquisitive baby for our tour guide.
With a storyline feeling like it could have been taken straight from the script of the 1994 feature film classic Baby’s Day Out, there’s no denying that Merryweather’s animation isn’t going to be the most narratively complex short you’ll see, but what its storyline lacks in depth, it certainly makes up for in fun. Revolving around Baby Betty’s journey through her father’s business, Buy Buy Baby is essentially a colourful and chaotic chase scene as our infant protagonist wreaks havoc at every floor she comes to. Inspired by his fascination with “fictional history”, Merryweather used his time at the NFTS to create a film that explored a fantasy scenario centred around a real-life historical event. “There’s a scene in Aladdin that stuck in my mind” the filmmaker admits to Short of the Week whilst discussing the concept of Buy Buy Baby – “the ‘whole new world’ sequence where we see an Egyptian sculptor chiselling The Great Sphinx of Giza. Distracted by Aladdin and Jasmin flying past on the carpet, he chisels a little too deep and the nose falls off. Such a great sketch. I was talking with my producer about an idea of ‘bring your baby to work day’. The destruction the baby could have caused could have started any multitude of events in time. She suggested the wall street crash.”
Set in the roaring twenties, Merryweather matches his period setting with an equally nostalgic design. Employing a hand-drawn style and carefully considered colour palette to hark back to a golden age of animation, Buy Buy Baby’s visual style is one designed to put a smile on the face of all lucky enough to witness it. From the neon-outline style of the typing pool sequence, to the abstract mayhem of the stock-market-floor scenes, the director and his team have put a great deal of care, creativity and love into making sure their film excels in the aesthetic department. Taking us on a journey of styles and tones over its brief duration, the director readily admits he “wanted the film to start quite dull and boring” in the beginning to showcase just “how colourless this man’s life had become”. Buy Buy Baby certainly doesn’t stay this way for long though and with the introduction of Baby Betty, we’re soon exposed to a plethora of contrasting styles, colours and music.
Having screened at many of the most prestigious film festivals around the world – including Annecy, Edinburgh and Klik – Merryweather’s film now gets its chance to spread its infectious happiness to a whole new audience with its online release.
Currently in production on a new animated short film likely to be released later in 2014, the director claims that this new project is one that is “going to get lovers of 80’s pop culture a little bit nostalgic!”