Line #10 WesternAnimation/ScratchAndCrow

Context WesternAnimation / ScratchAndCrow

Go To


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_0796_5.JPG]]
2
3	->Chickens are good animals
4	->And small.
5
6	''Scratch and Crow'' is a 1995 five-minute animated short film by Creator/HelenHill.
7
8	It is a meditation on the life of the chicken. The film, hand-drawn by Hill using watercolors, is a dream-like affair using surreal imagery to follow the life of a chicken, from hatching to death. The animation is occasionally interrupted by a poem written by Hill.
9
10	Made by Hill for her MFA thesis. Hill's career as an avant-garde animator was tragically cut short when she was murdered in 2007 at the age of 36, a crime that remains unsolved.
11
12	----
13	!!Tropes:
14
15	* AmazingTechnicolorWildlife: The chickens are so blue, they look more like bluebirds.
16	* TheBlank: The cat that hatches the eggs doesn't have a visible face, although it does have a tongue which it uses to lick the eggs.
17	* CradletoGraveCharacter: The life cycle of a chicken is shown, from hatching to death and flying off into the clouds.
18	* DerangedAnimation:
19	** The thought balloons of a chicken turn into rain clouds, which rain down nests. The nests then eject chicken eggs, which fly, until they land again, and are nurtured into hatching by a cat. Similarly surreal animation is found throughout.
20	** The sequence in the middle which represents the chickens' adulthood (which can only really be called that as it takes place in-between their chick stage and their death) is difficult even to describe, with a strange shape that looks like a fish skeleton, a jagged horizontal line that resembles an electrocardiogram, falling feathers, beaks and eggshells, rain, and a teapot.
21	* InterspeciesFriendship: The eggs are nurtured and hatched by--a cat.
22	* LineBoil: Plenty in this hand-drawn animated short.
23	* MimeAndMusicOnlyCartoon: There is no music and very little sound, save for the whirring of the projector and the clucking of chickens.
24	* TitleDrop: One of the verses of Hill's poem.
25	--> They should be looked after\
26	For how to peck\
27	And scratch and crow\
28	After what is good
29	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The cat is never seen again after it hatches the chicken eggs.
30	* WingedSoulFliesOffAtDeath: The end of the short has the chickens exiting their tomb and flying off to heaven. (Chickens, of course, cannot fly.)

Context WesternAnimation / ScratchAndCrow