Final Film, creative process information below
Initial Brainstorm
Concept Sketches
Final StoryBoard
What If is a short film about a person that gets hit in the head, making their reality to shatter into two. You see how life would have played out with the injury (represented by the traditionally animated paper figure) and without the injury (represented by the solidified paper cut out figure). The character moves between the realities, struggling to decide, represented in two different medias (cut out and hand drawn) Ultimately, character must choose one of the paths, accepting that they won’t ever be able to know how the other concludes, and continues with their life as the screen turns back into one.
There is an unexpected sense of loss when the character chooses the version of reality where he looks healthy. The character's injury is now seemingly concealed but now loses the support he would have had if he had the courage to show the injury. Whereas before, with the injury on full display, though most people are supportive, the character feels overwhelmed with the idea of everyone knowing and the judgement he might face. Overwhelmed by the thought, he breaks fully into the other side, finally making a choice and solidifying the future. Without the bandage showing the injury, everything seems magically cured and peaceful, yet there's also a sense of emptiness and loss.
Because the character still experienced the injury and has the memories, the injury ends up becoming somewhat hidden and erased. This represents a sense of isolation giving up the support you might have had if you had shown your vulnerabilities. It demonstrates the sense of calm yet empty ambivalence the character feels about being seemingly cured overnight. In essence, by hiding your scars, flaws or experiences of trauma that feel taboo, you lose the chance to relate with your fellow humans that may have been through similar hardships. This could apply to any other invisible challenges like mental illnesses, chronic conditions, family struggles and other treatments to mask conditions or experiences. And I wanted to express that there are positives and negatives sides to every choice we make. Ultimately, this film was about the sentiment of opening one door, while having to close another in order to move on.
This film was my final project for my animation class and was very difficult to make since it was about a unexpected hospitalization I was trying to process that term. However, I wanted to generalize so that it could be relatable to anyone struggling with a similar experience or difficult choice in life that could create sense of relief but also loss, whether that's choosing a university, career path over another, or a life partner.
I remember struggling to articulate what I was feeling the entire fall. I felt I should be relieved to be cured, but wasn't. So during the storyboard stage, I struggled greatly with creating blueprint for the film that felt authentic to what I felt. The character was cured, so isn't it a happy ending? Finally, after talking it through with my professor, and more iterations (constantly sketching alternative endings in my notebook), I landed on a version where it ends with the character reflecting on a wide empty shot, that captured mostly the essence of the ambivalence I felt the entire fall.
And once I got the storyboard down, I found it was important to see the vision through. This gave me the motivation to do over 300 hand-drawn frames in about a week's time, sleeping multiple nights at the studio (which I think was somewhat cathartic) and finishing it moments before our class's final screening. After that, I still wanted to complete the stop motion portion, resulting in several extra nights sleeping at the studio post-finals, but worth it I think to finish the film.
Stop Motion and Traditional Animation Mix Media Short Film made at Dartmouth College for Jodie Mack's FS35 class in Fall 2023 with over 300 hand-drawn frames
My biggest inspirations for this film was:
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Channel Chasers Episode of Fairly Odd Parents
Mix Media Shows like Smiling Friends
made by camomile
2024