The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore won the Oscar for Best Animated Short last night at the Academy Awards. Above, we’ve embedded the complete book-loving film.
Open Culture has more about the film: “Made with an animation style that blends stop motion with computer animation and traditional hand-drawing, the silent film pays homage to a bygone era when elegantly printed books inhabited our world. The 15-minute short is the first made by Moonbot Studios, a fledgling animation shop in Shreveport, Louisiana.”
Author and ex-Pixar character designer William Joyce rose to the top of Apple’s Top Grossing Book Apps list last year with the $4.99 interactive storybook, “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.” Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing will release a storybook version this summer.
We’ve embedded a video for the interactive app below–what do you think?
Fast Company praised the app: “This is the key to a successful children’s book — inviting them to play and explore and be curious, not just jab buttons to activate cheesy visual effects. And mercifully, every gewgaw in the book has a button so you can toggle it on or off: For example, you can kill the voiceover so you can read to your kid in your own voice the way God intended, or silence the music and sound effects if you want to.”