Paperman (2012)

An office worker meets the girl of his dreams and uses a fleet of paper airplanes to get her attention.

Director:

John Kahrs

Writers:

Clio Chiang (story), Kendelle Hoyer (story)

Stars:

John Kahrs, Kari Wahlgren, Jack Goldenberg

Won 1 Oscar. Another 2 wins & 2 nominations.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
John Kahrs	...	George (voice)
Kari Wahlgren	...	Meg (voice)

Storyline

An animated short that follows the story of a lonely young man in mid-century New York City, whose destiny takes an unexpected turn after a chance meeting with a beautiful woman on his morning commute. Convinced the girl of his dreams is gone forever, he gets a second chance when he spots her in a skyscraper window across the avenue from his office. With only his heart, imagination and a stack of papers to get her attention, his efforts are no match for what the fates have in store for him.

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Plot Keywords:

love at first sight | boy meets girl | skyscraper | paper airplane | office worker | 

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Genres:

Animation | Short | Comedy | Family | Romance

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Certificate:

G

Details

Official Sites:

Disney Animation [United States]

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

2 November 2012 (USA)

Also Known As:

Les avions de papier

Company Credits

Production Co:

Walt Disney Animation Studios

Technical Specs

Sound Mix:

SDDS Datasat Dolby Digital

Color:

Color Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

When the film won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short, producer Kristina Reed began throwing paper airplanes adorned with lipstick marks off the balcony where she was seated. She was escorted out of the theater by security, but was allowed to return 10 minutes later after a short protest.

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Crazy Credits

The Disney logo is in the black-and-white artwork of the short, and has a paper airplane flying over it.

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Connections

Referenced in AniMat's Reviews: Wreck-It Ralph (2012)

User Reviews

A short film an abundance of emotion

Emotion can be hard to convey to audiences in a short film. Due to the limited time and animation (or filming) that must be put into the story, it can consume the whole life of the story. But somehow, the crew that put this short movie together, obviously knew how they would construct it in such a manner that it would not only contain emotion, but every kind of emotion that is the basis for many other complex feelings.

The story of "paperman" is about a young gentleman who finds the girl of his dreams whom he just happens to run into by fate at a local train station. During the brief time he spends awkwardly hanging around the confident female, he ends up making a connection with her because of a gust of wind that happened to blow one his papers into her face. From there, he realizes the girl had planted a smooch mark on his paper. Awww, how adorable!

But because, like everyone else, time moves on she catches her train leaving the gentleman behind, hoping he would see her again. Little does he realize that he will see her very soon. Because everyone knows it's a small world after all right? And I'll leave it there, otherwise I'll be describing the whole movie to you. But in this minute and a half worth that I described, builds up a lot of emotion that is absolutely heartwarming. Just the introduction will display, timidness, humor and regret in that short amount of time. As the story continues, you will see hopefulness, frustration, disappointment and joy. And boy does it have a satisfying ending.

And the ordered display of emotions is just the beginning. The people who animated this film did an amazing job. The background and characters look like drawings but they also look 3D as well which creates a surreal but nostalgic feel of the story. Plus, to make the film feel even more retro, the crew decided to keep the film black and white except for the female's ruby red lipstick that's planted on the man's office paper. This allows the audience to focus more on what connects these two characters together.

Also, the way the characters are constructed, physically, may be slightly disproportionate to the normal human being but my oh my are they one of the cutest couple of lovebirds I've seen on the screen in a long time. Sure, the gentleman is lanky but that creates the sense that he's like any other average Joe. The one thing I found that stood out the most on the girl were her eyes. I can see why the guy had to take a second glance at the girl. Her eyes were an eye grabber for him. The girl just has a really sweet looking face.

Finally, what truly finished off this short film on a strong note was the music produced by composer Christophe Beck. To be honest, I wasn't quite sure how Beck was going to present the music for this story. After producing various action and comedy scores like RED (2010) and The Hangover (2009), I wasn't sure if I could trust Beck's ability to give out such whole hearted product. But he did here, no doubt. The music is partially what facilitates the emotions that are being evoked throughout the film and it really works. On a side note though, it almost resembles Adam Young's style of electro-pop (Owl City) like music. I'm curious if that inspired Beck.

Now, here's why I can't give this short 10 stars like I wanted to. The first is because it creates a false sense of life. Unfortunately, not every person's life is like this, where they meet the person of their dreams so suddenly. The film made me wish that life was like that for everyone. That's what is so disappointing about the story. These kinds of occurrences hardly every happen. If they did happen, the world would be so much happier!

The other reason why I can't give it full credit is because it is a short film and a real story cannot expand to only 7 minutes long. Plus, I have fallen in love with these two characters and I really hope that the producers decide to create a movie about these two lovers. That's something I'd definitely be up to see because this couple is unbeatable when it comes to love!

As probably one of the few short films that I think needed this much credit and justification for its credit, it definitely deserves it. Paperman is so sweet that the audience will beg to see a movie made from this story.