Sunny and Gerd in Spring Cleaning
Sunny and Gerd in Spring Cleaning is an animated short about two Robot co-workers. Gerd is a blue robot who is just getting time in the day to read his newspaper, and have lunch at his favorite spot, Sunny, a slightly smaller and rounder orange robot, sees an opportunity to get more work done in the day by creating a black hole vortex made to be a garbage disposal. But what Sunny doesn’t expect to have happen is he himself being accidentally thrown into this vortex, with Gerd being the only one who can save him, but will Gerd be able to?
There are so many things to love about this short, namely its stunning animation and heart. The tone and story surrounding the short resembles the most iconic pixar shorts that came during the time of Toy Story, Monsters Inc, or Finding Nemo. The animation is smooth, very detailed, and stunning to watch. I really liked certain moments when the background is blurred and the shot focuses in on one of the Robots. Not only did these shots look great, but I really saw the technical mastery of the animation done by Dacosta Bayley, who is a self-taught illustrator.
The story is simple, but has a lot of humor and intelligence packed inside it. There are different types of humor that anyone could enjoy, whether your style is slapstick, or maybe more subtle, it has it all. Also I really liked seeing Sunny and Gerd’s relationship with each other. Sunny is clearly the more optimistic, free-spirited robot compared to Gerd, who seems a little more “Vulcan-like”, playing more of the straight man role to Sunny’s character. Sunny also has an adorable pet robot, a red ball with an adorable face that steals the show when Gerd decides to test out Sunnys machine by throwing said pet into the vortex, to see if it can differentiate the ball from trash, which sets up one of the best jokes in the entire short.
Much in the vain of Pixar’s Wall-E (also a film involving two robots) the short is done with no dialogue, and relies on the animation and score to describe the story. I enjoyed the music in the short, it blended really well with what you are seeing on screen, and feels fun and playful. Sunny and Gerd defies conventions of the genre by how it tells its story as well as the narrative structure. The sound design is incorporated perfectly, and is seamless with the score. There is a lot of heart in a 5 minute run-time that is genuinely charming, and made me not want the short to end. I hope to one day see this be expanded on in a sequel or an expansion of the story told in this short.
If you are a big fan of animation this is right up your alley. Much like Sunny’s machine, is sucks you in and you lose yourself in this fun and creative world, and I had such a fun time watching it.
