The Shift Review

The Shift is a 2021 animated short film written and directed by Johan Samuelsson.

Combining notes of Bladerunner and visual tendencies from the likes of The Animatrix, The Shift provides an interesting sci-fi story that is layered with high production values.

For being a far-reaching science fiction dystopian future style short, the actual story of this film is not overly complicated at all. Which is for the better as it really allows the piece to craft something more focused in the small runtime it has.

The 3d visual animation really kicks the piece off wonderfully. For being an indie short it is actually pretty amazing to see the amount of detail that is in the animation from start to finish. Besides this the mixing of both 3d and 2d modeling is almost completely seamless throughout.

The one piece that unfortunately was a little undercooked perhaps was in the character design of our main protagonist. He feels a little bland in this otherwise densely characterized world. Bearing that in mind, some of the animation work on this character too seemed just a touch stilted when set against the very smooth 3d work we are given.

That may sound like a bit of a walk back from the previous paragraph but upon watching it does feel as if perhaps two different sets of animators were working on separate aspects of the film. This is a pretty common occurrence in modern animation of course, and while the 2d work is not bad, it sticks out in contrast to what we get in the 3d renderings.

Overall, though The Shift is a wonderfully animated film that borrows a lot from many science-fiction films of yesteryear, while also bringing some new ideas to the table. Taking place in a world where robots want to find the root of creativity is a fascinating thought to ponder and is rife with alternative stories to be told.

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Cheers!

Daniel Hess

Film Festival and Award Highlights:

Winner

Best design Finalist  – Animation Studio festival 

Finalist 

Best Animated film – Sci-on film festival

Semifinalist 

Short to the point 

San Francisco short indie festival

Boden international film festival 

Sweden Film award 

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