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Battery Daddy

Jeon Seungbae, 2021

Two very different fathers - one a human, the other a battery - are connected by their commitment to their work and families. On a trip to the great outdoors with his son, our human dad quickly gets into trouble when the weather takes a turn for the worse. Stuck in the middle of a flood, he uses his torch to signal for help, never knowing that Battery Daddy is hard at work to help them.

The film can be seen as an allegory for our use of energy, taking it for granted without appreciating how it saves u, as well as suggesting that it is in fact love which makes us powerful.

 

Clip Details

Genre: Adventure

Country of Origin: Korea

Medium/Content: 3D Animation, Colour, Sound, Fiction, No Dialogue

Clip Length: 06:15

Age Group: P5-P7, P1-P4

Classroom Activities

  • What type of animation is this? What other kinds of animation do you know? (Stop motion/clay animation/3D CGI/2D line drawing/hand-drawn etc.) Can you give examples of these?
  • Why does the director show us the car, teddy and dinosaur at the start? How does this link with the other things we see in the first 02:10 of the film? (Electricity usage, reliance etc.)
  • What do we find out about the family in the first 2 minutes of the film? Are they close? Where do they live? How do we know the parents care for their son? How do they spend their time? What evidence do we have?
  • Watch the film from 02:20 to 02:40. What three things does the director do to show us the change in mood of the film? Think about how the colours, sounds and characters are used to change the mood (e.g. How do the colours change? Is there a contrast in the sounds that are used? What did the characters do that pre-empted the change in direction of the story?)
  • What colour is Battery Daddy at the start? What do we associate with this colour, feelings/emotions/thoughts? Why does the director have Battery Daddy change colour when his children jump on him? What does this show the audience?
  • Pupils should list all the appliances they have at home that use electricity. These could be then written down, cut out, and organised into a Venn diagram: Batteries, Mains, Both
  • Families can all be different. Discuss the different family set ups within the class, explaining there is no right or wrong, and everyone’s family is different. Construct short family trees of immediate family members. (Be aware that this may be a sensitive topic and should be approached with caution.)
  • Ask the pupils who they care about/love. This could an introduction to the different kinds of love, what we do for the people we care for and who cares for us. Pupils could create a little mind map of the different ways they are cared for.
  • Talk about sustainability and what this means (appropriate to age/stage). Research/discuss different ways to create electricity that are sustainable. What ways are best for Scotland? Which methods are less appropriate for Scotland. Why?

FILMMAKING

  • Create a short animation showing one small part of the journey the object went on (e.g. a pair of scissors walking across a table). This could be done with cut-outs of the object in various poses.

Clip Details

Genre: Adventure

Country of Origin: Korea

Medium/Content: 3D Animation, Colour, Sound, Fiction, No Dialogue

Clip Length: 06:15

Education Level: Second Level