Me and "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl"

I don't know why it's taken me so long to watch this film. I think I kept confusing it with Lars and the Real Girl and therefore assumed I'd already caught part of it on TV once and felt bored. Or because no one has explicitly recommended it to me. Regardless, I regret the past 15 months I let this breath of fresh film air breeze right by me.

I'm not going to talk about the plot because it's going to sound off-puttingly like that of The Fault in Our Stars. Yes, it's about a girl dying of cancer, but the beauty lies in the visual storytelling. The film features claymation, 90 degree camera rotation, and a whole bunch of fake mini movies within the movie (e.g. Jurassic Skate Park, Rosemary Baby Carrots, A Sockwork Orange) to illuminate Greg's quirks. Here is one of those cheesy YouTube film analyses about the cinematography:

I found it funny and sad, beautiful both in visual and aural composition. It is rooted in classic filmmaking (i.e. fully aware of and in homage to "the greats") but marked by unconventional--or at least rarely utilized, especially in teen coming-of-age films--techniques. I recommend it to all, after this hell week of Thesis is done.

Storyboard and end result

Click the images to see a full size version.
The pictures are taken from the book Creating 3-D animation about the Aardman animations. I highly recommend this book if you are serious about animation. It will give you not only great ideas and behind the scene looks at some of the most memorable animations of our time but will also give you a sense of what it takes to do such work.