Entertainment
‘Shaun the Sheep’ — Fun-filled action film for kids
Film: “Shaun the Sheep”; Cast: Justin Fletcher, John Sparkes, Omid Djalili, Kate Harbour, Tim Hands, Andy Nyman and Simon Greenall; Co-directors: Mark Burton and Richard Starzak; Rating: ***
‘BaaHood’, ‘Mutton: Impossible Rogue Bacon’ and ‘The Fast and The Furriest’, the brilliant spoof-filled posters of “Shaun the Sheep”, although not related to these films, are bound to entice you. And if not, the film surely will.
“Shaun the Sheep” is a meticulously planned stop-motion Claymation film, closely based on the British TV series of the same name.
It is built around a simple storyline and simple pleasures, befitting its target audience. Beneath its pitch-perfect simplicity, lies great wisdom and beauty.
The narration rolls off with a rhythmic montage revealing the mundane lifestyle of the farmer and his animals, which include the sheep, the sheep dog, the pigs and the bull at Mossy Bottom Farm.
Our story is set in motion when the free-spirited, precocious Shaun, a sort of diminutive dreamer among the flock of sheep, finds himself bored by the routine of daily farm life.
One day a bus rolls by with an advertisement on its side which reads, “Take A day off”. It catches Shaun’s attention. So, he gets a bright idea of breaking their monotonous grind with some excitement. He along with the rest of his flock gets into action. They lull the farmer to sleep by making him count the sheep, literally, until he dozes off.
What follows is an unexpected turn of events that take the farmer, his sheep dog and the sheep to the “Big City”. It is their adventure in the city that mesmerises you and keeps you enthralled.
Written and directed by Mark Burton and Richard Starzak, the film is delightfully engaging with constant and frequently hilarious gags sans any discernible speech. The characters do enhance the lack of speaking voices, by punctuating their actions with bleats, sighs, grunts, muttering and other garbled sounds that make sense in conjunction with their movements.
And the gags range from simple ‘trip and fall’ slapstick comedy to the sheep disguising as humans and imitating them in a restaurant to elaborate sequences that hinge on chaos.
The film, with its fine production quality, is visually colourful. The animation along with the background artwork contributes individually to the whole. The frames move seamlessly and flawlessly in line with the brilliantly composed background score by Ilan Eshkeri, giving you a wholesome viewing experience.
Overall, this film will literally appeal to the whole family. While the children will giggle and enjoy the antics, the adult audiences will be awestruck by the finer nuances of the characters and the homage paid to some older films.
A definite holiday weekend treat for the younger ones!
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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