MartinHafer "In a Heartbeat" is a very unusual film. Two students from the Ringling College of Arts and Design, Esteban Bravo and Beth David, made this animated short as their final graduation project. That in and of itself is not unusual. However, when the short was released on YouTube, it received 20,000,000 hits in the first five days!! To this date, over 34,000,000 have watched the film. So, considering how popular the film was, as well as the quality of the project, it's odd that it was not nominated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the Oscar for Best Animated Short. In fact, it wasn't even included as one of the commended films when the animated shorts were shown in the weeks preceding the Oscars. I have no idea why it wasn't chosen...especially in light of how incredibly mediocre the actual nominees were.The story itself is very simple and is told without words. A gay young man (I am guessing about Middle School age) is smitten with a classmate. To illustrate this, Bravo and David used a heart...a literal heart...to show the boy's intense feelings. And, like most intense feelings from teens, he's unable to control the heart...and it literally bursts from the boy's chest and begins chasing after the other boy. What's next? See the film.The bottom line is that this film has spoken to a lot of people and it's very well made...so well made that I am anxious to see more from these bright young graduates.

robinsonaustin-07490 Darn it, internet, why are you always doing this to me? So, I had seen :iconPowerpuffpony1: talk about this short animation, so I decided to watch it myself. About 3 or 4 times to say the least. In a Heartbeat is about a middle school named Sherwin. Sherwin crushes after another middle school boy named Jonathan. I mean, the dude can twirl an apple on his finger for goodness sake. I can totally see why Sherwin developed a huge crush on him. However, he's afraid of revealing his feelings for Jonathon as he feared the possible shaming from the other students, or even worse, Jonathan may not reciprocate his feelings. To make matters worse, his heart leaps out of his chest; no really, it leaps out of his chest, and it goes after Jonathan.So after seeing the short animation, what did I think about it? I completely loved it. Sherwin is simply adorable; he's nervous about his feelings for Jonathan, and he cutely hides whenever he's near him, though some of that can be easily interpreted as stalking. I just really, really found Sherwin a likable character so much so, that I wanted him to succeed. i swear when Sherwin got exposed and his heart was torn in part I was close to tears. I was like "no, this was going swimmingly so far, please don't let this happen!" Or whenever Sherwin and Jonathan were close to lip level, I was practically screaming "kiss him, darn it, kiss him!" Though of course I was screaming internally. Jonathan's heart was also pretty adorable as well, though with him panting like a dog when they were close to Jonathan....yeah, that was a little creepy. As for Jonathan himself, he's fine. I do like how he does reciprocate Sherwin's feelings especially when it seemed as though he was going to reject Sherwin's feelings. However, there isn't really much I can say about Jonathan as he doesn't really have as much character to him as Sherwin does.The animation was beautiful. It boded well with the cutesy feel of the video. For one, the use of lightness and darkness. The light represents danger whereas the dark represents security. In the scene where Sherwin gets outed is in the middle school; immediately, his classmates start to whisper in a sinister tone. And in the shade of the tree, Jonathon and Sherwin began to bond as their hearts symbolically merge into one. I would even say that this animation can rival the likes of Pixar. In addition, there isn't any dialogue in the film. Despite this, you can tell what each character is thinking through their facial expressions. From the first time you see Sherwin smiling longingly at Jonathan from the tree, you can tell right away that he has a crush on him. Or when the two boys are finally in the school building; Sherwin looks at the others in dejection and fear at how they would perceive him, thus causing him to do the drastic and rip his heart in half to escape. Jonathan himself looks at him and the other students in confusion as to what had just transpired, but he also slowly begins to figure it out, and goes to console Sherwin.As much as I loved this animation, one issue that I had with the film is pretty minor, but I consider it bothersome. It's the whole love at first sight trope. Realistically speaking, that kind of affection wouldn't happen, and it gives off the bad impression that anyone could become a couple regardless of whether or not you know enough about the person. But it's a minor nitpick; overall, I absolutely adored In a Heartbeat; it was adorable, the characters are so cute that it makes you want to see them together, the message isn't shoved down your throat, and it uses its animation and facial expressions to convey its story to the watcher. I highly recommend this short animation, not necessarily if you are gay or whatever, but if you're an animation lover.

Platypuschow Sweet animated short about a young man and his heart pursuing the boy they have a crush on. Pixar quality animation but make no mistake it's not and I don't believe Disney are "there" yet.As you can imagine right wingers and the religious would crap bricks if this short ever reached the masses and gained the acclaim it arguably deserves.Very short and a bit cheesy this is a good effort and honestly if they made a feature length movie about this I'd happily watch it.It's not political, it's not forced and there is no gay "agenda" this people is about one single thing..............love.

webberrules Considering the fact I live in Australia, I have a feeling that this short film might be classified M rather than G, because of the homosexual theme. That is a double standard, but at the same time it shows that same-sex relationships can be just as touching as opposite-sex relationships.The story was simple, yet so beautiful. The stereotypes of same-sex relationships have been challenged by doing a sexual orientation role reversal in a similar presentation that opposite-sex relationships are often depicted, but there are some differences too. It is not a complete template of a role reversal, where the middle school boy suppressed his attraction to another middle school boy. If it was a template on a opposite-sex relationship, then the love suppressing scene would not be in there in the first place. I wonder if they will do a similar thing, this time with the traditional roles on sexual orientation we are familiar with being reversed, where the middle school boy falls in love with a middle school girl, which could be very interesting. All in all, simple yet beautiful story.The animation in this short is colourful and the music really got and I nearly cried with the use of the music playing, which was so beautiful.I consider this short animated film to be a must watch, since it can be used as a driving force for same-sex marriage becoming a reality, including my country, Australia. This is coming from a heterosexual male who is challenging the stereotypes of heterosexual males himself. I hope this short will not be banned in some countries, like Kuwait and Malaysia, for example. But it seems that the ban in those countries is inevitable. It is a bit of a tear-jerker for me.