Mr. Hublot is a lovely executed 3D animated short. The character design is a lot in correspondence with the design of the surroundings.
The short begins with an introduction to mr. Hublot, his surroundings remind me of the 50ies mixed with a modern, steampunk like touch. He performs a series of actions which lead me to the conclusion that he deals with a form of OCD. When he exits his house he sees that the big building opposite his house is for sale, down in the street is a lot of traffic. His attention is grasped by a small robot-like dog. He then enters his house again and get a time lapse of the night.
In the morning he follows a ritual that is very time-bound: stirring his coffee for a certain amount of time, hitting the edge of the cup with his spoon for a certain duration, until he gets distracted of the happenings outside. He again focuses on the dog. Lost in thought, he "awakens" again when the bell in his clock tolls. In a hurry he continues with his rituals. In the meantime we see that the dog is having a rough time. (
When he wakes up the next day because of a lot of noise, he sees that the box the dog was sleeping in is slowly disappearing in the garbage truck. Because having grown a fondness of the dog, he hurries outside to try and help the dog. Thinking the dog is gone, he is surprised when the dog is suddenly sitting next to him. He takes the dog in, takes care of him and the dog keeps growing and growing. Suddenly the dog becomes too big for the tiny home. Because his rituals are disrupted, mr. Hublot slowly starts "to lose his mind", and it seems like he wants to take apart the dog out of frustration.
In the next shot we see him performing his daily rituals in peace. It turns out he bought the big building that was for sale in the beginning, so he could live together with the dog, without having to care about the house falling apart.
The combination of the designs of both the characters and the surroundings, plays a significant role in the way the story is told. While Mr. Hublot's design is quite simple, he has a lot of details in his accessories. The way he interacts with his surroundings gives away a lot of his personality and his surroundings have an effect on him as well. As his easy living life gets disturbed by the dog growing and growing, it has an effect on mr. Hublot and this is visible by his design: the meters on his head go on and on until they reach a maximum. I think this was very cleverly done in the design department, how to make clear through their design how a character is feeling. All the meters and other appliances that are part of his attire react on his surroundings and his behaviour and are sort of a translation of his feelings.
I really loved how the animators played with the design here, on how it's more than just a part of someones attire, but an extension of their personality. Even for the dog, to visualise him as a stray dog they used scrap metal in his design. Clever details like these make such a short film very interesting. I also think there's room for such details because it's such a short film.
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