A Gum's Life (2009) - Festivals

A Gum's Life (2009)

"A Gum's Life" has been screened in several Film Festivals:

2011 15th Annual North American All Youth Film and Education Day
2011 Soul 4 Reel Film Festival

2011 Los Angeles Student Media Festival
2010 Won The Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Prize Best Child Produced Film 27th Annual Chicago International Children's Film Festival
2010 Winner at International Student Media Festival in Anaheim
2010 Los Angeles Film Festival
2010 Reel Teens Film Festival in New York
2010 Sidewalk Moving Pictures Film Festival in Alabama
2010 Santa Cruz Film Festival California
2010 Cine Youth Film Festival in Chicago
2010 Made by Kids: ICA International Children's Film Festival Boston
2010 Newport Beach Film Festival California
2010 10th Annual deadCENTER Film Festival in Oklahoma
2010 Won the Audience Award at Screen Film Festival California
2010 NFFTY 2010 in Seattle
2010 ViewFinders International Film Festival for Youth in Canada
2009 Marlborough Film Festival California

"A Gum's Life" incorporates claymation, which is the process of altering the position of the clay characters after each frame.

Claymation is complex but as soon as we got the hang of it, we were cruising on our way to post. It is advantageous that nearly half of the film is animation and the other half takes place in the classroom.

In my opinion, the most time consuming part in filming this movie, is animating the characters' eyes. Between each frame, we had to change the position of the gums' pupils as well as carefully placing a thin piece of pink clay to make it seem as if they are blinking. The blue pupils were just a little bigger than the period at the end of this sentence. It took steady hands to stick each pupil on each of the gums' eyes. By the end of production, there were numerous blue pupils lying on the bottom of the pack of gum that were accidentally dropped during animation.

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WALLE (2008)

WALLE, released to theaters on June 27, 2008, is about a lonely robot named WALLE, who lives in a futuristic Earth, which has accumulated a large amount of garbage towering everywhere. WALLE is designed to compact garbage in order to clean up the environment. All humans were to board the Axiom ship until these robots were done gathering all the waste but this process seems to be making no progress at all and the robots were shut down.

However, WALLE is the only robot that is still working and he lives in a garage, where he collects interesting artifacts, with his only friend, a cockroach. Unlike other robots, he begins to develop emotions and often times, he feels lonely. His only sort of entertainment is watching a romantic movie known as Hello Dolly and wishes he had a love of his own.

One day, WALLE encounters a high-tech robot known as EVE, who has been dropped of to Earth by an enormous ship and sent to search for signs of vegetation. Amazingly, he is instantly captivated by her beauty and intends to befriend her. However, he fails to capture her interest no matter how he persistently attempts to impress her with his endless collection of artifacts.

But his luck is about to change when he leads her to his garage where he shows her many of his artifacts nevertheless, it's the plant, which he found a while ago, that snags EVE'S eyes and she instantly communicates with her mother ship. Ironically, EVE goes into hibernation mode after her mission accomplished leaving WALLE in distraught. Several days later, the mother ship returns for EVE and WALLE tries to get her back by hitching a ride on the ship.

This movie is enjoyable for all ages and is a delightful mixture of action, romance, and comedy. It also has a very interesting plot and shows how Earth would look like if we continue to fill it with waste. Some scenes were very touching and keep your eyes glued to the movie. The story flows well and it always keeps you entertained. I believe that this movie is one of the best animation films.