Museum Of Useless Things

Fall 2023

Museum of Useless Things is my final animation for my Introduction to Animation class at Purdue University. I wanted to involved and focus on dialogue and story, as those are two aspects of animations I admire and enjoy. I created two characters with opposing characteristics. The guy is very excited by all the things in the museum and is simply happy to be there. The robot, on the other hand, has little patience and even appears fed up with the guy and shows little emotion throughout the animation. I use these contrasting personalities to create fun scenes that build up to the end, where it is revealed that the robot's goal was to use the guy's curiosity and child-like sense of wonder to trick him into becoming just another item on display in the museum, signifying a bleak conclusion that humans are just useless things.

Additional Elements

Another aspect of animations I appreciate and attempted to incorporate are additional elements, often present in the background. This is often seen in shows like the Simpsons, where there will be a poster or character in the background, that is not essential to the scene, but has some sort of pun or funny action attached to it. When noticed, it usually results in a laugh or chuckle from the viewer. In Museum of Useless Things, I added epitaphs to the plaques that are seen up close, as well as a biker in the opening and closing scenes of the animation. Quoted quips can be seen on the plaques for the items on display, and a bike in the opening scene that is not present in the closing scene, which can be assumed was stolen, as the man who fell off the bike is sitting in a small pool of blood in the closing scene. I also added what may be considered an "easter egg", which is the pez dispenser on display. It is a Bender pez, which references a robot character on the TV show Futurama, who has the catchphrase "Kill all humans", which the robot in this animation does, as we can see there is a collection of humans on display at the end.