Typically, within the face of adversity, all you are able to do is giggle. And that’s precisely what Ben Meinhardt has us doing together with his newest all-too-real musical brief Dwelling the Dream.
This super-meta brief follows an animated animator as he smiles by the ache of bouncing from gig to gig and struggling to make ends meet. Presumably, the protagonist is Meinhardt, however the character might be relatable to anybody who has ever gone per week consuming solely Ramen whereas they wait for his or her subsequent paycheck.
There’s a comedic disconnect between the brief’s outwardly joyous protagonist and the dystopian nightmare through which he lives that’s completely delivered. The whole lot is grey, the buildings are crumbling, the meals seems to be like shit, and every of the background characters appears to be hiding a psychotic break behind a toothy smile.
Meinhardt additionally made the good inventive choice to incorporate sing-along subtitles, which creates a nostalgia for the Disney VHS tapes that so many people grew up with. A tuba-heavy soundtrack is the icing on the cake.
Meinhardt’s newest comes from a spot of deep familiarity with its themes. He’s a 2nd animator with 20 years of expertise and a resume that features business work for big firms corresponding to Walmart, MTV, Hasbro, and Toyota, in addition to stints on television sequence together with Harvey Birdman, Legal professional at Regulation; Ed, Edd n Eddy; and Kinderwood.
Right here’s hoping there’s a great deal of hyperbole in Meinhardt’s cartoon interpretation of the world and, as he says within the video’s description, “this doesn’t age nicely.”