Thoughts on my Thesis Film, Diamond

This film took about 8 months to complete and was my senior thesis film. The main characters are based off of a stuffed horse, Diamond, who I have had since I was around 4 years old and my childhood dog, Molly, who died in 2023 at age 15 years old. Coming into senior year I had no idea want I wanted my film to be about, however, I did have some goals in mind for my last year in art school. The biggest one was, I wanted to build my background portfolio and I wanted to do backgrounds that challenged me and were unique to the rest of my portfolio. Nature has always been a huge inspiration to me and my art but i've mostly only shown that in my ceramic art and have avoided it almost entirely in my digital animation. The number one reason? Drawing trees is really hard man. But, with this film I forced myself to face that head on...at least mostly. Through the beauty of digital art I only actually drew three complete trees that ended up in the final film. Copy, paste, and distort are my best friends. I did separately draw most of the tree trunks in each shot with a little less copy and paste. Regardless, I was able to face my fear of nature drawing while also not making the entire year hell for myself and ended up learning so much! Of course, there are a million things I'd love to change or shift around in this film but I came into the project with the largest goal of targeting my weaknesses while not burning out and I feel very successful in that sense!

For the story itself I originally figured I would go with a more non-narrative approach and focus on animals and nature just existing. But that concept just wasn't very satisfying for me. I wanted my thesis to still be connected to what was important to me, to the journey I've gone on to get where I am now, and to say thank you to the ones in my life who helped me get here. Even if their roles in my life were seemingly very small. Diamond has been a constant companion to me for as long as I can remember. Having him in this film felt like giving my younger self a hug and showing them how far we've come and how much we have accomplished.