Stop Motion Animation
Growing Pains was created with the desire to create a film that portrayed the struggles of mental illness and ways to overcome it. However, I didn’t want to create a film that portrayed mental illness as something dark that needed to be vanquished, but something that simply needed love and care like any other part of the body. Mental illness can often be portrayed as something that you should hate about yourself, or that it is something that makes you lesser-than. With Growing Pains I wanted to teach the opposite: that mental illness may be incredibly difficult to live with, but through learning to love yourself in every stage of your struggle and success, and through taking good care of yourself and your brain, life can be livable again.
Watch the full film here!
See how it was made…
Portland Public Library Project
This short was created in partnership with the Portland Public Library. Using cut paper animation the goal was to show potential donors everything the library has to offer, including and beyond books. This entire short was created by me, from concept to completion.
This is a reel of animations I did using the stickybones posable armature, based on several film/tv reference clips. I wanted to focus on more subtle animation, trying to get the most dynamic performance as I could out of such a simple puppet.
References in order: Steel Magnolias (1989) The Princess Bride (1987) The Breakfast Club (1985) Marriage Story (2019) It's Always Sunny in Philladelphia, Season 5, Episode 7 "The Gang Wrestles for the Troops" (2009)
References in order: Old Time Rock & Roll- Bob Seger, Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)- Beyonce, Smooth Criminal- Michael Jackson, Vogue- Madonna, Party Rock Anthem- LMFAO
This is a reel of dance animations I did using a robot puppet that I built myself. His body is made of painted wood, with limbs made of wire wrapped in painted athletic wrap, and hands and feet made of painted epoxy putty. This was my attempt at making a puppet that was as flexible as possible, in order for it to be able to do the full range of movements I had planned for it. This is a final version of the puppet, but he went through many iterations involving different limb materials and wire thicknesses that originally didn't bend/animate as well.