Click on the gifs below for more information on each individual film, and click here to watch the full film. 

Wasteland is a 5 part film that deals with a variety of subjects and themes, such as isolation, mental illness, and the subjectivity of reality.

The 5 segments of Wasteland can all be viewed individually, but when viewed together, are part of an overarching emotional narrative that builds on itself with each segment.

The films were made from 2015-2019, and were my student films while attending CalArts for Experimental Animation. I went into school with the idea that I wanted all of my films I made to be narratively connected- but I didn’t know how it would manifest until I completed Earth is Flat and started Goodbye Forever Party. The idea came out of being interested in the emotional subjectivity of reality, as well as my interest in trying different visual styles to communicate mood. When I started Goodbye Forever Party, I decided to keep the landmarks of the Wasteland in the background, and try to subtly communicate that it was in the same world. You can see the idea come to fruition in the last 3 shorts, where I decided to push the concept further than I had been planning. “Ascensia” serves as the concluding point of the themes I established in the earlier films.

EIF, GFP and DOA were my major films from this time, but Dr. Sam Mulaney’s Burden + Dying in the Wasteland were projects I completed for smaller classes. I used the classes’ creative project requirement to make films to flesh out the concept of Wasteland more, instead of making unrelated pieces. I included them in the series despite their lower quality (EIF and GFP each took 1 year to complete, DOA took 2 years, Burden/Dying were both completed in 2 weeks each to fulfill my class requirements), because I felt that they helped contextualize everything more.

Earth is Flat was completed when I was 19, Goodbye Forever Party when I was 20, Dr. Sam Mulaney’s Burden/We Are All Dying in the Wasteland when I was 21, and the Final Exit of the Disciples of Ascensia was completed when I was 22. As a result these films feel like watching my worldview gradually shift in real time as I made the transition to adulthood.

From my unfinished artist’s statement I wrote around the time I finished the film:

Wasteland is a feature film (~80 minutes) made up of 5 shorter films; The Earth is Flat (6 min), Goodbye Forever Party (20 min), Dr. Sam Mulaney’s Burden (4 min), We Are All Dying in the Wasteland (4 min), and The Final Exit of the Disciples of Ascensia (45 min). Each of these films builds on top of themes established by the last, and while they can all be viewed separately, when viewed all together they become a cohesive piece that discusses the subjectivity of reality, worldviews defined by emotion rather than logic, mental illness, and living life in the midst of pain.

An integral aspect to the point of this overall series is visualizing and externalizing different characters' worldviews through what visual medium is being used and how their view of the world is presented, & establishing an internal visual and aural vernacular inside the series of films that make certain subtle aspects make sense to people who are paying attention. The 5 different parts can all be viewed individually and are meant to make sense on their own, but when viewed together and in sequence bring a different and more interesting context to each of the pieces. 

Something I was interested in with the Wasteland, was using an unconventional narrative structure of telling a cohesive emotional arc through 5 films, having them flow together and create a larger point when viewed all together. Individually, each film has its own message and has its own themes, together, all the themes come together and act as stepping stones to the next theme. In the final film, The Final Exit of the Disciples of Ascensia, every emotion comes together and is given a conclusion.

Every visual choice, especially The Earth is Flat, Goodbye Forever Party, and The Final Exit of the Disciples of Ascensia, is intentional and meant to contrast with how popular animation and the way we typically consume it. I’m of the belief that every single “rule” that we are presented in animation school, and in the animation industry at large, are all fake. I think we’re in a postmodern era of animation, and as a general audience we’ve been conditioned to understand shorthand of movement and character design, and we’ve had enough exposure to cartoons that now things that aren’t completely clean and pristine in presentation can still be understood. I’m also interested in making the process of animation as fun and intuitive as possible, rather than engaging with some arbitrary perimeters of what is acceptable.

The presentation is purposefully messy, the films are consistently inconsistent on purpose, and in my mind, further the point about the subjectivity and fragility of reality. Design wise, I decided to rely on lowbrow/childish design choices, for instance, eyes that resemble Garfield, and minimalist landscapes made up of squares and triangles. The landscapes themselves are meant to resemble the kinds of landscapes I would draw as a child, the design of the Wasteland itself based on how I would try to draw the LA area when I was a kid. I also used a lot of atmospheric long shots of these simplistic landscapes, despite the fact that they aren’t beautiful or realistic. The design decisions are contrarian to what the mainstream considers acceptable, the idea being that you don’t need consistency for animation to look good or acceptable, or for the audience to be captivated in the story. 

One intentional design choice in Wasteland is the “Garfield eyes”. It’s a conscious decision to ironically displace lowbrow iconography in the context of high emotion. Consider, what does it say when we as an audience see someone with Garfield eyes truly hurting, Garfield eyes in the context of someone weeping over loss. Falling in love, even! This displacement creates a very specific emotional depth that is hard to completely define. A lot of my choices in presentation are supposed to create a layer of detachment to make you consider your place as a viewer, so you’re engaged in the story while also conscious and hopefully thoughtful of what you’re being shown. When we see someone with the eyes of Jon Arbuckle who is suffering from a chronic mental illness, and when we are forced to truly empathize with her immense pain and suffering, what is the emotion that is created in that headspace? We are forced to empathize with her despite what her appearance reminds us of, the lowbrow, the childish, the cliche. Is it emotionally realistic, does it say something? I think so! Who’s to say that Jon Arbuckle is not a living, feeling man? Who’s to say that Lilith is not a living, feeling woman? Who’s to say that Mira and Celisse are not falling in love with each other? We watch The Little Mermaid and come away with the idea that Ariel and Prince Eric love each other. It is real to us, we get invested with the lives of fictional characters when the story is presented in a way that we can engage with emotionally. To me there is no difference between Ariel and Prince Eric’s love, and Garfield’s love for lasagna. We associate the Garfield eyes with the lowbrow, and the eyes of Our Little Mermaid with the highbrow, the way that she is rendered, with her semi-realistic-yet-exaggerated facial expressions, is meant to say, “Take me seriously!” Jon Arbuckle’s eyes are meant to say, “Laugh at me! I am a cartoon.” Yet there is no real difference between Ariel and Jon, they are both cartoons. They are both cartoons with the same capacity for emotion. Wasteland explores high emotion within the context of lowbrow design, portraying real, felt emotions within the context of scribbles and half-remembered cartoon design logic. 

I’m interested in what questions are raised when I present my films in this matter, when you’re forced to look past the scrappiness of the presentation to engage with a personal and engaging story. According to many members of my audience, the scrappiness often heightens the story and makes it even more engaging. Interesting!

My main goal is for the films to be strong, entertaining, emotional and interesting, despite not following established rules of both storytelling and animation. My other main goal, is to get you as an audience member to engage in a unconventional yet well-told story, despite the fact that it constantly reminds you that it isn’t real, and is only paper.