Not Your Average MacGuffin

Not Your Average MacGuffin

Bruce Von Stiers

Meeting MacGuffin a stop motion animation film short. It is an animated sci-fi, fantasy thriller. It is also listed as an ecological thriller.

The production company behind the film is Clothespin Freak Productions.

It was written and directed by Catya Plate. Catya was also in charge of the animation and visual effects. The film was produced by Catya and Todd Aven. Todd has worked on a couple of other film shorts with Catya and has done editing and other functions for several other films. Victoria Negri is a consulting producer for the film. Victoria has extensive acting credits in addition to writing directing and producing credits. Catya is a world renowned artist, whose work has now transitioned to the world of filmmaking.

Richard Steven Horvitz does the voice of Gormal MacGuffin. Richard has voiced a couple of Dragonball games along with World of Warcraft: shadowland and films such as Angry Birds 2.

Misty Lee does the voice of LF. She did the voice of Bad Harriet in DC Super Hero Girls, has voiced a few Star Wars games, a G.I. Joe game, one of the latest Crash Bandicoot games and a Spiderman one. Misty also has had live action roles in a couple of shows.

John McBride does the voice of Hitch. He doesn't have a lot of voice credits behind him yet. But John does recreate the role of Hitch in an upcoming film.

Meeting MacGuffin is actually the second film in a trilogy. The first film, Hanging By A Thread, dealt with how humans, by their selfishness, basically destroyed the planet. And how a new breed has to work a do-over.

In this second film, there is a prelude to the story in which the viewer learns of man's destruction of the earth. And that the only thing left of human's are body parts scattered throughout the land. And that a special group, the Clothespin Freaks, will try to rebuild humanity using the body parts they find.

And as the new story unfolds, the Clothespin Freaks, and their humanoid charges, the Homeys, seek out additional body parts in a Lost and Found area underground.

LF is the head of Lost and Found. She takes the Homeys and Clothespin Freaks on an underground journey. This journey includes the Homeys receiving additional body parts as they go along. The ultimate goal of the journey is for the Homeys to visit Gormal, a groundhog who has special insight.

Even though the prelude gave a broad overview of what humans did to the earth, Gormal provides the Homeys with additional information. And that, now that they are sentient beings, the Homeys now have a specific task to help replenish the earth. And that is the apparent lead in to the third film in the trilogy.

As for the quality of the stop motion, it was pretty well done. The character movements are fairly fluid, which isn't always the case in this type of animation. The vocals of each speaking character are synced decently. As for the characters themselves, well, they look a bit weird. But the Homeys start out with just brains, pelvises and feet tied together with chains, metal connections and cords. As they progress, the looks don't get much prettier until near the end of the film. The only seeming normal looking characters seem to be a bird at the first of the film who acts as a narrator and Gormal.

Meeting MacGuffin is a cautionary tale and one of possible redemption. The first is about humans devastating the earth's ecology and the second is about beginning a journey to replenish the earth's natural resources.

I enjoyed Meeting MacGuffin for both the animation and the message.

Meeting MacGuffin is available for streaming at Amazon and other services.

The film has a Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/MeetingMacGuffin.CatyaPlate/

You can also learn more about the film at http://www.catyaplate.com/meeting-macguffin

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