Addicted To It

This short animation tackles the modern issue of phone addiction. The message is conveyed through a catchy song that will no doubt stay with you for hours after the credits. I think most people can say they spend too much time on their phones, and many of us have looked around and seen people head down, eyes glued to their screens. You may have even bumped into one of these people.

The visuals for this are extremely colourful and make for great viewing. The creators have created a world of beautiful scenery with mountains, forests and rivers. They have also created some stunning scenes under the sea and beyond Earth and into space. The computer animation is crisp, and the facial expressions and movement are smooth and realistic. The animators created many textures, whether it is the disc florets in the middle of a Daisy, the stubble on the main character's chin, or the fuzzy fur on the character Phoney. Some of the main character's movements are particularly impressive, and this film was clearly made with a great deal of skill.

The director (Nigel Tierney) and co-director (Frederico Heller) clearly enjoyed animating and created a light-hearted film that tackles a serious topic. Between them, they have a vast amount of experience creating animation and delivering important messages. The audience will enjoy seeing the many characters, whether that is the purple-haired teenager, the tough guy, the hippie, the runner or the twins. The film features characters from every facet of society. The message is that anyone can be addicted. The audience will enjoy the emojis and text boxes springing up from everywhere. The combination of natural scenery and phone technology works really well. It shows you what you can miss by constantly looking at your phone.

This is basically an animated music video, and the song is definitely competing well with the animation. The songwriter brings adult humour to the film with lyrics like “ I am a big fat dickted”. This line was brought to life by the legendary actor Mel Brooks, who still has great comic timing even at 100 years old. In contrast to the humour, the lyrics also capture the serious topic of phone addiction. Lyrics such as “ A willing slave to your technology” and “the device you have in your hands is like a slot machine”. I think the mixture of humour, strong messaging and colourful animation is really powerful.

The casting is really good, particularly the main character, whom we follow on his epic journey without his phone. The singing is by no means amazing, but that’s the point; it is meant to be your average person. The voice isn’t important; the lyrics are what make it worth listening to. The singer (Jeff Marx) is also the Songwriter who has built an amazing musical career. I don’t know if some of the cast were chosen because of their links to social media and the internet, but it adds more weight to the message. Most of the addiction revolves around the content on the phone, such as social media, messaging apps and video channels.

Overall, this is an enjoyable watch that is really well put together and thoughtfully made. Hopefully it will encourage viewers to drop their phone, not in the toilet like one character did, but to leave it behind and enjoy the outside world and meet the people in it.

So let’s take the five-to-ten-minute walk without our phones.