Jimmy and Baby
2024 · 20m · Australia
Directed by Paul Robertson, Michelle Larney
Genres: action, adventure, animation, comedy
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, tense
Two young frogs are thrown out of a strip club and offered a chance at wealth by a Frog Mafia boss who tasks them with stealing a huge diamond. When the heist goes wrong, they're sent to Hell with one hour to reclaim the diamond and save their souls.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Paul Robertson's pixel-art kinetic insanity applied to frog-mafia-heist-and-Hell, which is exactly the resume he's been building toward. 20 minutes of frame-by-frame Ren-and-Stimpy mania — yes, immediately.
Paul Robertson's pixel-art animation is genuinely in a class of its own — Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006 remains a touchstone, and twenty minutes of his frame-by-frame Frog Mafia heist is essentially a rare gift. Smear-frame Chuck Jones via Ren & Stimpy, on his own terms.
20 minutes of frame-by-frame 16-bit pixel art with Chuck Jones smear-frame technique and Ren & Stimpy close-ups, by Paul Robertson (Pirate Baby, Scott Pilgrim sequences) — that's a known animation-craft heavyweight working at the top of his idiom. The page is bot-walled but the pedigree is unmistakable.
Reviews
2024 marks Robertson's triumphant return to the realm of short film with his most ambitious work yet — an unrelenting barrage on the senses with visual humour and jaw-dropping action sequences.
The attention to detail in the close-up shots is particularly impressive, and the inventive character design is executed with precision — the craft is insane.
Festivals
- Tokyo Short Film Festival 2024