Am I a bird?
I’ve never quite been able to chirp or fly away. But I linger by the nest waiting to see if one of these days my wings will grow.
A cat that barks and a fish that flies.
Never one thing. Always too many. Not enough. Empty.
Who am I?
“The Animals” explores this feeling of isolation that comes with not fitting into one specific friend group.
The main character (The Human) exists in a world divided by animal species. A surreal reality where the unspoken social classifications of high school are made visual through animal masks.
This is a personal subject for me as someone who has always struggled to pick one clique to identify with. I’m often shifting: changing seats, switching projects, tripping over dedication to any specific art form.
So, I’m making this film to communicate that feeling. The feeling of not belonging. Being: smart, but slow. Empathetic, but unemotional. Creative, but a perfectionist. And… it’s really difficult. I don’t know what I’m doing and I don’t know why. This is always my struggle when writing a short film script, and I know that, but when I’m in it, it just feels so personal. This is my story and I want people to feel something from it. I want people to know THIS is how I feel when they ask me “How’s school going?” And i’m trying to communicate all that in under 10 minutes with maybe nine weeks to get it done.
One big thing i’m struggling with is putting the very real school aspects of the story into the abstract forest world of the film. When I discuss this with people it seems like it really shouldn’t be that hard to do. I could always just drag a desk out into Glen Canyon and call it a day. But, like I said, this film is really personal to me and I want it to feel specific.
I want it to feel like you’re in a group of nerdy friends talking about Pokemon and you’ve never played Pokemon so none of the jokes are funny to you and you are also really bad at playing the chopsticks finger game and that’s, like, the only activity your friends do, but you’re not gonna go over and join the cool group at this point because it’s April and you can’t just randomly pull up a chair and think they’ll like you and also even if you do join that group it’s not like you know about all of their gossip and will get all of their jokes so I guess you’ll just have to suffer through the Pokemon hand gestures (is that a thing?).
You know, I think I need to make this film. I need to make this film because I’m an artist made of contradictions.
An actor making a movie. A socially anxious extrovert. A hardworking summer school student. A fish learning to fly.
A human.
Inspiration for the film… keep track of my progress for when I finish the storyboards in 16 years.
