THESIS STATEMENT

2021 kicked my a$$ while also giving me a lot to think about. I’ve realized just how important it is to have support, and to persevere when things get tough. Having people to talk to has made my journey through exploring my gender identity and high school in general so much easier, and given me confidence in myself and my ability to succeed. I wanted to show a little bit of that. I wanted to explore those ideas in a medium I love, animation.

When I started I wanted to focus on intentionally designing characters and shots to evoke certain moods and feelings instead of figuring it out as I went. I wanted everything I did to have at least a little bit of a reason behind why I did it in the way that I did. One of the most important things I’ve done in that respect is to create characters that don’t have an easily discernible face. There’s something about looking at a character that doesn’t have facial expressions that allows each viewer to understand them a little differently. The deep emotions and feelings have to be gleaned from context and body language and it’s a design choice that I wanted to have in my project from the beginning.