Garden Party Analysis

 Garden Party

1.   Progression (Links to an externa

• The beginning of Garden party has several frogs and toads basking in a poolside area. 
• slowly they begin to find their way into a dilapidated manor . 
• exploring areas of a large home where bullet holes and strewn about clothes scattered around the home show signs of something more sinister has happened. 
• The frogs and toads make themselves at home and indulge 

2.   Conflict

• there isn't much in the way of conflict aside from the trials and tribulations the frogs find themselves in.
• there's conflict that isn't shown but the remnants of it bullet holes, 

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3.   Characters

There are several different characters for this short.

• Sleek green frog

• large toad

• speckled large toad
• A clear objective to eat all the sweets in the abandoned kitchen.  

• small hunting frog

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4.   Surprise. 

• Our first surprise comes from this frame where it shows a damaged security camera which is then followed by a ominous piano key. This builds more mystery on what happened to or what this mansion has in store. 

 

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5.   Timing of information.

• The timing is pretty back and forth. It goes from showing these happy frogs just living out their everyday life to this mystery mansion with suspenseful music playing. We are curious about what the frogs are doing while also wondering what the mystery behind this mansion is. 

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6.   Novelty (Links to an external site.)

•    The novelty of 'Garden Party' is as basic as it gets, which adds to its simplistic appeal. There isn't an immediate message or poignant gimmick, it is simply frogs communing in a dead guy's mansion. The main novelty or punchline is the reveal of the dead man in the pool; this reveal had been teased throughout the  short, with the bullet holes in the security camera and window, along with the gun next to the broken-into safe. The entire short is almost a slight to most other animated shorts which typically have a meaning or moral, in that the only thing that really matters is a bunch of frogs just hanging out, and the 'murder mystery' is simply a lingering side-story that the audience pieces together. The juxtaposition between the adorably  frogs and the grizzly murder makes for a very entertaining story.

7.   Visual Flow 

• The short film starts with beautiful shots of the sleek green frog adventuring through nature and a large curious toad following from behind. 

• They arrive at a mansion where it looks like a giant party was recently hosted. 

• The green frog enters the master bedroom and we can see clothes, shoes, and belts on the ground in a pile, so the audience can assume that there was a lot of activity happening in the mansion. 

• Mystery starts to build once the security camera is shown with bullet holes in it, but it is later overlooked after the small hunting frog jumps into frame trying to catch a butterfly. This takes the audiences attention away from the mystery back to the happy frogs living their own little lives. 

• Things start to get intense when the music picks up and the camera shows the broken door lock and bullet holes in the door

• The camera then pans away to the frog hunting the butterfly again to distract us away from the real mystery here. 
• This is done pretty frequently throughout the short film where at one moment we are enjoying the cute frogs living out their normal lives and then out of no where we are given a tense scene where us as an audience can tell that something unusual happened here while the frogs are completely unaware. This builds mystery to keep the audience engaged. 
  

• With these provided frames, we can now assume that this wasn't just some giant house party. There seems to have been some sort of shootout. This adds more mystery on what happened to this house and keeps the audience engaged wanting to know more. 

• The frog chasing the butterfly then jumps on a bunch of buttons uniformed that he is turning on music, lights, and the pool fountains, bringing the house back to life. A happy song is playing and frogs from all around are gathering at the mansion. The camera then cuts to the pool which a dead rotting body is revealed sprouting from the pools fountain. The music still is playing a happy song which gives a good example of "soundtrack dissonance". One mans murder became a party for frogs.