Title sequence for Cassie Shao’s "This Is a Story Without a Plan" screening at Annecy International Animation Film Festival

The title sequence I designed for Cassie Shao’s This Is a Story Without a Plan will be screening in the Perspectives Short Films competition at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, one of the world’s leading events in animation. I was honored to contribute to Shao’s inimitable process, which integrates cel drawings and acrylic paint with 3D environments. I’m so proud of her artistry being recognized at an such an esteemed, international level.

This Is a Story Without a Plan (2023) Dir. Cassie Shao

2023 SVA Film & Media Festival - Poster Design

It was a joy creating this year’s poster for the Society for Visual Anthropology Film & Media Festival alongside my former USC MVA professor Jenny Cool. Together we created this and other marketing materials for the 2023 American Anthropological Association/Canadian Anthropology Society (AAA/CASCA) yearly meeting in Toronto.

This poster features still images from these 2023 SVA Film & Media Festival films: (Top) Sama in the Forest - directed by Carlos G. Gomez and winner of the “Best Feature” award; (Bottom) Addresses (Direcciones) - directed by Maria Luisa Santos & Carlo Nasisse and winner of the “Best Short - Honorable Mention” award.

"What I Had to Leave Behind" Official Selection at 2022 Los Angeles Animation Festival

What I Had to Leave Behind will screen at the 2022 Los Angeles Animation Festival on December 10th. Founded in 2007, LAAF is the city’s only international film festival and symposium.

Earlier this week, Maggie Dave - Old You, the official music video animated by Cassie Shao for Christensen’s pop music project with Mark Christopher, was awarded Honorable Mention at LAAF. This honor is given "to work of an exceptionally high standard and worthy of festival praise." Shao is an alum of the festival, earning a nomination for her film There Were Four of Us as Best Student Experimental Short in 2019.

"What I Had to Leave Behind" at DOC NYC

What I Had to Leave Behind will be screening at DOC NYC, America’s largest documentary festival. Now celebrating its 13th season, this year celebrates new talent, feature film premieres and compelling stories from artists of all backgrounds, cultures, ages, abilities and identities.

I’m honored to share the screen with my colleagues in the “New York, New York” shorts block. Tickets are now on sale for both in-person and streaming.

"What I Had to Leave Behind" at 2022 HollyShorts Film Festival

The Oscar-qualifying HollyShorts Film Festival hosted a screening of What I Had to Leave Behind at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, CA on August 18th, 2022. It was a fun night sharing the evening with my friends and collaborators from the film: cinematographer Wenting Deng Fisher and animator Cassie Shao. Our mighty sound mixer Jackie! Zhou had three films in the shorts block we played in, including our own!

Post-screening Q&A after the “Docs II” shorts block at the 2022 HollyShorts Film Festival in Hollywood, CA - August 18th, 2022. (Photo by Shengwei Zhou)

28th Palm Springs International ShortFest - June 24th, 2022

I was honored to share the screen with so many brilliant creatives at this year’s Palm Springs International ShortFest. I feel the journey of a film isn’t complete until an audience experiences it together. With that, What I Had to Leave Behind was embraced in a way that was completely unexpected and so gratifying for me & the crew who attended. Special thanks to Getty Images & David Crotty for capturing on the red carpet how I felt that entire week: grateful and proud of whatever comes next.

"What I Had to Leave Behind" at 2022 Palm Springs International ShortFest

As we wrapped miniature photography on What I Had to Leave Behind last spring, cinematographer Wenting Deng Fisher had an idea for a behind-the-scenes picture. I had to crawl underneath the set, a dollhouse-scale replica of my old Los Angeles Koreatown apartment, to get to the other side and give her the best angle. One year later, I'm looking at myself through this doorway, reflecting on all that was unknown at the time for my film & I. I hadn't yet added Cassie Shao's remarkable animation or Branden Brown’s evocative score (his first for film). Not even Jackie! Zhou’s immersive sound mix or Alastor Arnold’s impeccable color. This film would just be an empty room without my crew.

Wenting Deng Fisher adjusts her camera on the miniature set of What I Had to Leave Behind.

Later this month, our film will be making its west coast premiere at the 2022 Palm Springs International ShortFest, selected to compete in the "Best Animated Short" program. I'm overwhelmed with gratitude. For all those currently in the middle of a project or a pathway that seems obscured, keep moving. Don't be afraid to ask your peers for help. If and when you're blessed with their support, always give it back to your community two-fold. You're always stronger when you build together!

Palm Springs is an institution. Their thoughtful Oscar, BATFA & Goya Award-qualifying programming elevates the craft of short films. It's an honor to participate this year with my latest offering. Please check out the rest of my peers on the #shortfest2022 YouTube playlist to hear all about their wonderful work.

Miniature scenic art for "A Puff Before Dying"

It was a joy to create scenic art with my friends at the Bob Baker Marionette Theater for this innovative short film. Everything was built to marionette scale, a bedside lamp here, a hairdryer there…A Puff Before Dying, with a cast of four handcrafted puppets, is a tongue-in-cheek romp about the dangers of driving under the influence. PSA directed by the fiendishly clever Michael Reich & Mike Pinkney of Yellow Veil Pictures. Premiering at the Midnight Shorts competition at SXSW earlier this year, I was so proud to be a part of this hardworking, visionary crew. Click here to learn more about the film.

The doomed heroine of A Puff Before Dying. (Writer/Director: Michael Reich, Mike Pinkney; Puppet design and fabrication by Bob Baker Marionette Theater.)

A conversation with “Lata” filmmakers Alisha Tejpal and Mireya Martinez

A meditation on class and space in South Mumbai, Lata frames the life of a young domestic worker (the film’s namesake) within contrasting privileged and prohibited interior worlds. Director Alisha Tejpal and producer Mireya Martinez, who both co-wrote the screenplay, shared with me their creative process shortly after the screening of their film at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.

ARCHITECTURE, DISTANCE & PRIVACY

Tejpal: Before even knowing the story, the film was very much structured around the idea of wanting to capture modern day, post-colonial architecture and spaces in India that reflect the ways in which even urban architecture perpetuates this system. The home is divided in particular ways, there's particular corridors and doors that cut access. The quarters that the help live in are so segregated, both in sound and in location. So, this idea of wanting to have this architectural element play a role as a character in the film was very important to us. We started to script keeping in mind that the film would at first just be this look into small, segmented spaces of the home, and as the film proceeds, we open the world so you get a sense of the architecture of the entire space. The sound of the outdoors is what would guide us in understanding how far Lata is from something, how much she can hear or can't hear.

Martinez: I remember while we were writing the script, Alisha said something very funny to me...that she couldn't ever envision the film in a close-up. It's almost like her brain had a block where it just all took place in single wide takes that cut into each other.

Tejpal: Yeah, that's true. I do think the film benefited from my not-yet-advanced filmmaker brain in the sense that when it came to editing, I was still unable to fully comprehend shot sizes. So, my natural go-to response has always been wides. The framing of the film was very much an attempt at maintaining distance from the lead as a constant reminder to the audience that the filmmaker is of a different class and caste, right? That the filmmaker is an outsider, and I’m not in any way proposing to give a voice or be a voice for the various actors. They have their own voices and very much have the agency for it. That isn't my job or my place to do. In some ways that dictates the distance, as well as this repetitive reminder, even to the viewer, that we are looking into a life that also has its own privacy. We had a rule with our DP (Director of Photography, Ravi Kiran Ayyagari) that no matter what, the camera always stays at eye level. Even if it's not the best, most beautiful frame – we meet Lata at eye level, no matter what. As much as you are getting access to, I am getting access to as well. The access, in this case, is being controlled by Lata and protecting and preserving her own privacy as well.

PROTECTING THE VISION

Martinez: It's a very close creative collaboration. I was a co-writer and a producer and a creative producer. I think all of those roles may sound like a lot, but to me they make sense. The writing component was the one that stuck more to being a co-writer, whereas the other roles merged into one, becoming a facilitator for Alisha's vision – also a protector of the vision itself. Firstly, you're supposed to take care of getting what you actually need for the film. I think for awhile she (Alisha Tejpal) had a very strict, theoretical idea of what she wanted the film to be. But the whole time I was like, "Okay, I understand that it has to hit these aesthetic constraints that you want to reach. And you want it to do XYZ on a theoretical claim, but where’s the meat? So, a lot of our co-writing exercises were more about dragging out the meat and putting it on the page. The script. As a producer, it was just about—

Tejpal: As a protector.

Martinez: (Laughs) …as a protector.

Tejpal: I want to know this too.

Martinez: I think as a director, if you're doing too much, you’re bound to stray away from the thing you want to make. I remember that because I'm also a filmmaker and I definitely struggle, or have struggled in the past from trying to do too much, which I think is part of what makes me a reasonably good producer.

Tejpal: I like the term “protector,” and I think that's where the role of a creative producer comes in, depending on the relationship. It's not about how many shots you can get and how much of the film you can get. It's about figuring out what serves the film best.

Martinez: This is a silly example, but as a director—I was trying to shoot this short film. Alisha was on camera and it was my own project. I wrote the script about a little girl whose turtle dies. I was doing too many things at once, so I went and ran out to the rental house to get a little fake turtle. But between the stress of directing and the shoot and all of these things, I forgot a key component, which was that the turtle was supposed to be the size of the fish tank. And I ended up renting a tortoise.

Tejpal: A tortoise. (Makes shape with hands)

Martinez: And that's what I tried to not let happen to Alisha. It's about catching all the things that would distract her from what she's actually trying to make.

Director Alisha Tejpal & producer Mireya Martinez (standing, first and second from right) review their camera setup on location in a residential apartment in South Mumbai. Crewmembers Hetal Dedhia (Gaffer) Vandita Jain (1st Assistant Camera) and Director of Photography Ravi Kiran-Avaggari look on.

OCCUPYING THE SPACE

Martinez: We had a very leisurely schedule, which was a choice. The pace was very slow, it couldn’t have been made any faster. Sometimes we’d have an hour-long break in the middle of the day because if we have control of the set, why don’t we do what we would like in the real world? There were moments where the crew would look at us and just be like, "Why are we waiting for the sunlight? Just light it.” And we had to stick to the original vision and wait for the light outside to naturally change.

Tejpal: Just to add, I think the biggest thing we learnt from all of this was that you have to serve the project what it needs, right? I don't think it would’ve been possible to have made Lata without non-professional actors and on a tight schedule. If I want this woman's presence to fill the frame and I want whatever her body carries to find its own meaning within the space, then I need to give her time and time doesn't necessarily mean with the camera rolling. So, we shot over five days. We could’ve done it in three, but we gave it time. There was time for her to repeat the gestures, or the living room shot where she swept. She must've swept eight times before we even shot it.

Martinez: Or just be there.

Tejpal: Or just be there, and I think it had all of that. It's not something you can rehearse, right? It's muscle memory. And it's the way your body reacts to objects. And I think all of that infuses the frame. And for that, we had to make sure the base of the film permitted her to keep up and to sort of experience the space and give her the space to do that. But we also used it like a framing device, right? Because we don't really hear her name until the end of the film, so it became a play on who does the audience latch themselves onto in the first scene? When a film opens, there's a certain expectation of story and how we read story and where we latch ourselves onto what stories we think are worthy of our attention. And similarly, what characters usually tend to dominate stories. We were interested in also playing with that, the ways in which we attach ourselves to upper class and upper caste characters in the frame almost instantly, because the working class is always usually the background, unless sort of “made a protagonist” by a specific cinematic language, like a close-up.

Martinez: It’s something that I believe in, and I think Alisha does too. I think when these choices have a true history, or depth, or are thought through, usually people feel it even if they're not consciously aware of that depth.

Tejpal: It’s something we both agree on. For cinema to be accessible, it doesn't mean it has to be passive. It can still be cinema that demands participation and that if you leave the room with questions, then I think that's more interesting to me than giving you all of the answers. I think in some ways, both of us resist this idea of cinema being universal and this idea that it speaks in the exact same way to everybody. I think there's a beauty to not knowing everything and that it's okay for a foreign audience to watch something about a particular environment in India and not know. As long as it allows space for participation and space for questions, I think it's successful.

---

Lata will make its European premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, June 2nd through 6th.

A conversation with Sundance 2021 filmmakers Julian Doan & Brianna Murphy, “Raspberry”

A young man (played by Raymond Lee) struggles to say goodbye to his father for the last time in Raspberry, from writer/director Julian Doan and producers Brianna Murphy and Turner Munch. As they prepare for their film’s world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, my conversation with Julian and Brianna revealed how their observations on relationships between the living and dead influenced the making of this short, and what it offers to audiences as a way to reflect on the grieving process.

Julian: It was a Monday at like, 3 PM. I was in the middle of working and I looked at my phone and had a missed call from a 310 number that was maybe ten to fifteen minutes ago. But there’s no voicemail or anything, so I thought maybe it was someone at work or someone asking about a job, so I called them back. A woman answered and she went, “Hello?” And I’m like, “Hi. I got a missed call from this number.” And she was like, “Who is this?” And in my head, I’m like, “You called me. You probably know who this is.” So I told her my name and she said, “Oh, it’s Heidi from Sundance.” Immediately I was really excited but also really on guard. For some reason, I don’t know, I was expecting they were calling us to tell us “It was great, but…”

Brianna: They don’t call you. (Laughs)

Julian: (Laughs) I know. 

Brianna: They don’t call you for that. 

Julian: So anyway, she was like, “We watched Raspberry, we thought it was great, and we’d like to invite it to Sundance 2021.” I tried very hard not to lose my cool. So I went, “Yeah. Oh, that’s great. That’s really awesome,” but inside I was freaking out. I kinda wish I’d let myself freak out a bit.

Brianna: Well, you told them maybe. (Laughs)

Julian: Yeah, so pretty much we didn’t know. We didn’t know what to do with this festival season with COVID and everything. Things were so uncertain. I sort of asked her whether or not the invitation still stands if we wait a year. And she said, “No you’d have to re-apply.” I don’t know what I was thinking, but I asked, “When do you need to know by?” She was like, “I mean, as soon as possible. Preferably by the end of the week.”

Brianna: (Laughs) Oh man.

Julian: “Okay. I’m like 90% sure it’s a yes,” I said. I think I needed to call someone. I needed to call you, at least. It didn’t feel real. I texted you, right?

Brianna: No, you called me, but I didn’t answer because I was in the middle of working. Then he texted me and said: “It’s not an emergency but call me when you get a chance.” I texted back: “Maybe six o’clock when I get off.” This was three hours away. (Laughs)

Writer/Director, Julian Doan

Brianna: So he called his friend Bernard, whom he shares good work news with.

Julian: Yeah, I just needed someone to freak out with. So, I’m telling him everything and he goes, “Have you told Brianna yet?” And I was like, “I tried calling her and she told me she’d call back tonight.” And he was like, “No, you need to tell her to call you back now.”

Brianna: (Laughs)

Julian: It was like I hadn’t thought of it. (Laughs) So then I hung up the phone and I texted her again, “But like seriously if you get like five minutes just give me a call.”  

Brianna: So, I call him back and he says, “I just got some amazing news, do you wanna guess what it is?” I have no idea. “Really?” he says, “you have no idea, what that news could be?” He said, “We’re gonna be Sundance filmmakers.” In my head, I imagined this is what people who want to have children feel like when they find out they’re pregnant for the first time. It was pretty unreal. 

Julian: I heard some sort of whimper on the other end of the phone. Are you crying, are you laughing? What’s going on? 

Brianna: I was crying. Laugh-crying. I felt like I smiled the whole rest of the day. Maybe they couldn’t tell because I was wearing a mask.

Julian: I had been writing a lot of this stuff over the past two years, when my dad passed away, and honestly a lot of that is just literally what happened, so it didn’t take a lot of creative extrapolation to put it down into a scene. I guess what it was is when I’m going through all of that, it’s just a lot of observations, like watching my brother and how he’s grieving and watching my mom and thinking about how I’m grieving. So, the first step is you need to attach it to a character. There needs to be a character who’s experiencing these things. That’s probably the easiest way in for someone to watch it. It’s essentially combining all those emotions into one person.

Brianna: In discussing making it and discussing the script, it is a very personal experience for you, but at some point in their lives – everyone deals with somebody dying. I remember when my grandma died, she wanted to have her memorial service in her home. When they brought her casket in, it was very solemn and they put her in the parlor…and then when they opened the casket it was sorta like, “ta-da!” It felt like a magic trick, like a reveal, the way the guy did it. Like, “here she is!” It was so weird.

(From left to right) Raspberry crew Jiyoung Park (2nd AC), Eddy Scully (gaffer), John Mattingly (1st AD) and Litong Zhen (1st AC) set up the next shot as director of photography Geoff George sits with writer/director Julian Doan to preview the framing. Production designer Jake Woodham looks on.

Brianna: I think there is something universal in this story. I think people don’t necessarily know how to put a description or word on it, especially in Western culture. We go to great extents not to deal with it. In other cultures, people spend a lot of time mourning a body…literally touching a dead body. We’re like, “we’ll ship it off to the morgue,” somebody else dresses them, somebody else buries them. Not to say that everyone does that, but I think there’s a universal quality to some of the emotions in this story, that I’ve experienced and other people related to, in reading the script.

Julian: Whenever I’ve talked about my dad dying, Brianna talks about that story with her grandma, and then I’m like, okay—it’s not just me. Someone else saw that this is awkward. When you’re watching someone die, people do weird things. And then once we started getting the actors on and other crew members, and you start talking to everyone about it…everyone’s got that story. Then you go, “okay, it’s not just for me.” As you talk to more people in the creative process, then you start to realize, through them, that it works. 

Brianna: What happened was he (Julian) wrote this script and uploaded it to a Dropbox that is shared with Ray, one of the actors. He read the script and said, “Oh, this is really good. Did you mean to share this with me?” Julian forgot he had saved it to a shared drive, but after Ray said he liked it, the script started getting shared around a little bit more within the friend group – among people that are filmmakers as well. We’d been talking about “maybe there’s a chance to make it,” sometime in the future, as this nebulous sort of thing.

(Center, from left to right) Actors Gihee Hong, Alexis Rhee and Raymond Lee prepare for their next scene.

Brianna: In February, my best friend’s father, Michael, died suddenly from cancer. He very swiftly declined, and in the span of a couple days from going to the hospital—died, very unexpectedly. We got the call that he had died at three o’clock in the morning, and then later that day we were doing errands and Julian’s friend called and said, “Hey remember that script you wrote?” He works at a soundstage up in the valley, and he said, “We have a free weekend. If you want to shoot it, you can come up here and shoot it for free.” It was this day we had just gotten this really horrible news, and then found out we had this opportunity to make this. For me, it felt very cosmic. We knew we’d be flying to a funeral in the next couple of weeks as well, so there were a lot of reasons not to do it, you know? For me, it was more of a motivating reason. This feels right. For whatever reason this feels like a gift we’ve been given right now.

Julian: We had just heard the news not even twelve hours before that call. It almost felt like, if we don’t do this now, what did he die for? It felt like that, like when someone dies—there’s a goodbye you have to prepare, like writing a eulogy. “I don’t know if we can do it in two weeks,” I said. And Brianna said, “Let’s just start trying.”

Brianna: I told my friend, “Hey, we got an opportunity to make the film. We found out the day your dad died.” And she was like, “He’d totally want you to do it.” (Laughs) Which, he really would’ve.

“I think there is something universal in this story. At some point in their lives – everyone deals with somebody dying.” - Producer, Brianna Murphy (pictured above)

Julian: There’s an energy on-set shooting it. Obviously, it exists in your head for a while. We cast people, some of which I’d worked with before, some I hadn’t – so there’s always some trepidation. We didn’t have time for rehearsal.

Brianna: We had a one-day shoot. 

Julian: We didn’t know how this was all gonna shake out. Who knows? But the moment we knew we had something was right when Raymond Lee, the lead actor, does that emotional turn with his father. 

Brianna: Ray had talked about “wanting people to kinda be afraid” of what is going to happen when he moves over to that bed. 

Julian: We planned to have that shot later in the day, for him to work up to it…but he did it, and we were just staring at the monitor like, “Oh my God.” 

Brianna: It was all in one shot. It was the first take.

Julian: My jaw was on the floor. I was stunned. I can’t believe he made that so real.

Brianna: And then we cut, and Julian was like, “Alright, let’s do it again.” (Laughs) Our 1st AD was like, “Can he do that again?”

(From left to right) Writer/Director Julian Doan and director of photography Geoff George.

Julian: We felt really good after we shot it. Ray and the rest of our cast—Alexis, Joe, Gihee, Molly, Matt, Harry—these actors were so generous and gave these unexpectedly grounded, raw performances. It was even better than what I imagined going in.

Brianna: What’s special is people noticing all of the little details that are in the movie that the entire crew thought about. Little touches that highlight the absurdity. One friend noticed the detail of this Asian family having all of their shoes by the door, and the undertakers come in and do not remove their shoes. The pamphlet that the son flips through, with the image of a covered wagon, is a play on a pamphlet called “Gone from my Sight". It is commonly given out in hospices with instructions on navigating the end-of-life process, like a "how-to" manual on grieving. It’s a very similar style picture of a tall ship sailing off onto the horizon, or whatever, but it’s this metaphor of death using a very white and Eurocentric image that’s not something this Asian family would relate to. People picked up on that. It was special knowing that the edit and direction gave people the space to notice that.

Julian: For me, I actually felt a little disconnected from the emotion of it, working on it, because my dad passed away two years ago—so I’ve had a couple years to deal with that grief. I felt a bit more activated, in terms of creative engagement, even though we shot it in the house and the room that my dad died in. 

Brianna: It’s not a soundstage. We actually found out on the day of Michael’s funeral—that we lost the location, so Julian spent most of the funeral seeing if he could permit his stepmom’s house.  

Julian: I wanted to be present for the funeral. Emotionally, mentally present—but I was on my phone a lot.

Brianna: It was horrible. But we had to keep this train moving. We had to figure this out.  

Julian: Which was always how I’d imagined it, of course—when I wrote it, it takes place at my dad’s house. So, when I visited the soundstage I was thinking, how do we make this look lived-in? How do we make this work in a very short amount of time?

Brianna: It was totally a blessing in disguise. 

Julian: We wouldn’t have been able to pull it off at all. There’s a lot that could’ve been very hard to deal with emotionally, shooting in such a personal space. It felt kind of weird, to be honest, but I felt very excited to do it—which at some level maybe felt wrong inside me, but I didn’t let that stop me too much. My stepmom was so gracious with us shooting this film in the house, and she was even excited to watch the process. She kept taking behind-the-scenes photos and wanted pictures with the cast! (Laughs)

Writer/Director Julian Doan prepares actors Gihee Hong and Raymond Lee (seated, left to right) for their next scene.

Julian: I always knew my dad would appreciate it. I think after talking to actors and other people it gets a little bit distanced. They become different people—and it’s not me. None of the characters I even necessarily think is me. I don’t think of that character as my dad, it’s just the scenario. It wasn’t too hard, but of course there’s times when I just wish my dad was still around to share it with. Actually, the morning we were shooting, it was five in the morning—I was picking up coffee and Brianna texted me and said, “I’m super excited we’re doing this together. I’m really proud. I wish your dad was still here and we were making this film about someone else.” I wish he was at the house and we were like, “Hey, we’re shooting here!” 

Brianna: (Laughs) Yeah. “Hey, thanks for letting us use your house!” 

Julian: Obviously, I would love to share it with my father. It's ironic because it wouldn’t exist without him dying. But I know he would absolutely have loved it.

---

Raspberry premieres at the Sundance Film Festival, January 28th - February 2nd in “Shorts Program 2”. Tickets are available now, with the Explorer Pass granting virtual access to all 49 short films in this year’s festival, as well as “New Frontiers” and “Indie Series” programs.

2020 Sundance Film Festival - Short Film Tour

As I prepare for Sundance’s offering of world premieres next year, here’s the trailer for their Short Film Tour, a 93-minute program of 7 short films selected from their 2020 Festival:

It was great to see Thea Hollatz’s Hot Flash included in this program, an animated short that Maggie Dave had the pleasure of screening alongside of, earlier this year.

As they describe it, “Widely considered the premier American showcase for short films and the launchpad for many now-prominent independent filmmakers for more than 30 years, the Short Film Tour includes fiction, documentary and animation from around the world, giving new audiences a taste of what the Festival offers, now online.”

Nevada City Film Festival - Animated Shorts Filmmakers' Interview

Earlier this summer I had the pleasure of joining a panel of animators and producers at the Nevada City Film Festival - Animation Shorts program, to discuss our approaches to visual storytelling, inspirations and collaborating virtually during this unprecedented year. Representing Maggie Dave - I’m Not Ready, animated by Cassie Shao, special thanks to Festival Director Jesse Locks for hosting the conversation.

Interview with selected “Animated Shorts” filmmakers: Josephine Lohoar - The Fabric of You,
Calum Hart - The Fabric of You, Sean David Christensen - Maggie Dave - I’m Not Ready, Camrus Johnson - Grab My Hand: A Letter to My Dad, Geoff Hecht - Metro 6, Cullen Parr - Charon; Hosted by Jesse Locks

"Maggie Dave - I'm Not Ready" at LINOLEUM Contemporary Animation and Media Art Festival & Nevada City Film Festival

Cassie Shao’s brilliant music video for “I’m Not Ready” (music video for Maggie Dave) was announced on two lauded festival lineups this week. At the LINOLEUM Contemporary Animation and Media Art Festival, Shao’s film will make its Ukrainian premiere alongside 26 other international offerings in the “Commissioned Film Competition.” At the “Sundance of the Sierra,” the Nevada City Film Festival will host the music video at their innovative outdoor drive-in cinema under the stars of Grass Valley, California.

Drive-in Cinema at Nevada City Film Festival

Directed & Animated by Cassie Shao Produced by Sean David Christensen “I'm Not Ready” written by Maggie Dave Vocals & keyboard: Sean David Christensen Synthesizers: Mark Christopher & Ricky Berger Vocals engineered by Ricky Berger Mixed by Ricky Berger & Mark Christopher Mastering by Trevor Case https://www.karasucassie.com/ https://www.maggiedave.com/ --Official Screenings-- 2020 Athens International Film + Video Festival 2019 Flux Screening Series Fall edition at the Hammer Museum 2019 Music Video & Shorts Night #3 at the Gold Diggers

15th German (Göttingen) International Ethnographic Film Festival

Looking forward to some traveling this summer...thanks to the 15th German International Ethnographic Film Festival. I'm thrilled to be counted amongst this acclaimed collection of documentaries that critically address social, political and cultural themes. Ghost Tape #10 will be engaging with a new, European audience this May. What a remarkable program to be a part of!

Ghost Tape #10: Award of Excellence, 2020 BEA Festival of Media Arts

Out of more than 1,750 entries from 300 colleges nationwide, what a privilege to have Ghost Tape #10 be counted amongst the 18 award-winning "Short Form Documentaries" at the 2020 BEA Festival of Media Arts. An international festival that seeks to enhance professional standards in broadcasting, I'm honored to take part in this event. I’m grateful to my faculty instructors at the USC Department of Anthropology / USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences ~ Prof. Janet Hoskins (Advisor) and Prof. Jenny Cool ~ and to my production team who helped realize this film: Ricky Berger, Pham Thu Hang, Hoa Nguyen, Cookie Duong, Jamie Maxtone-Graham, Thiên Chip & Jedadiah Cracco. Special thanks to Margaret Barnhill Bodemer and the Journal of Vietnamese Studies for their awareness and critique of the film!

"The Sandwich Movie," 10 years later.

Rescuing this trophy from storage back home reminded me of how the passage of time always surprises. Years can crawl or leap forward, in this case, the near-decade that has gone by in a blink since visiting Tipton, Iowa for their Hardacre Film Festival. Holding the award in my hand again coaxed a flood of memories, like the accumulation of colored pencil shavings and dust that collected in the valleys of my keyboard, those years ago. Animation is a medium I’m always drawn back to, its gravitational pull too strong and the desire to experiment with visual storytelling too great. I’m thankful to have come across this again, as a reminder of being rewarded for the passion to create, while learning along the way.

"2019 Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival" by Sonny Kay

I love the artistry of the official poster celebrating the 2019 Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, the longest running all-documentary film festival in North America. Designed by Sonny Kay, his entrancing, layered work is just as compelling as this year’s program of curated non-fiction shorts and features.

Ghost Tape #10 / San Diego International Film Festival

Thrilled to announce that Ghost Tape #10 will make its West Coast premiere at the San Diego International Film Festival next month. I’m honored to share their screens with the 107 selected films in Gala, Spotlight, Narrative, Documentary, and Short Selections. My spirit is grateful to my crew in Vietnam and Los Angeles, and my instructors at the USC Center for Visual Anthropology.

Ghost Tape #10 awarded at SVA Film & Media Festival

The Society for Visual Anthropology’s Film & Media Festival screens work by students, professional anthropologists, and professional filmmakers at the American Anthropological Association’s annual conference. This year’s festival is hosted in the beautiful city of Vancouver, and I can’t wait to present my film alongside other works of visual ethnography at such a critical event. This year’s theme, “Changing Climates,” invites anthropologists and their collaborators to examine how we engage with communities around issues of change over time, including climate change, to envision and build a more equitable future.

"Dani" by Lizzy Hogenson

I am inspired by my friend Lizzy Hogenson and her film Dani, a claymation documentary short about a daughter delivering the news of her breast cancer prognosis to her mother. The intricacies of their relationship are painstakingly handcrafted, one subtle movement at a time, from yarn, beads, cardboard & felt. These fragile elements are bound together by the hard work of producer Kyle McClary, editor Robert Panico and original music & sound editing by Ricky Berger. An official selection to this year's Oscar-qualifying Palm Springs International ShortFest, I'm eagerly awaiting to see it on the big screen next week!