No lights, no actors, no crew – artists like Kristin Solid take the term “independent filmmaker” to the next level.
As a third-year graduate student in the UCLA film, television and digital media department’s Animation Workshop, Solid has written, directed, and animated several award-winning short films. Her latest, a five-minute 3-D animated film called “Match Scratch Fever,” has won a slew of laurels from film festivals nationwide and was recently announced as a finalist in the 7th annual Angelus Awards, which offers a grand prize of $10,000.
While the Angelus Awards offers a hefty sum of prize money, that kind of cash is far from the norm and certainly not the reason to get involved in the festival circuit. Solid gets satisfaction simply from exhibiting her art, which is the product of an extremely personal vision and months of independent work.
“I find it really rewarding to be part of a festival and to have people get to know my work,” Solid said. “A film like this is part of your personality, part of who you are.”
Whereas live-action film requires collaboration between people from many fields of expertise, short animation pieces can be a completely self-contained piece of work. For “Match Scratch Fever,” Solid guided the film from the original idea through story boards and finally the 3-D animation; the only aspect she didn’t personally create was the score. She sticks closely to the mantra of the Animation Workshop – one person, one film.
Yet, Solid isn’t completely isolated. Apart from influences like animator Rich Quade (a graduate of the Animation Workshop and supervising animator for Pixar’s “Toy Story,” “Toy Story 2” and “Monsters, Inc.”), she utilizes the student filmmakers around her.
“I know my film wouldn’t be nearly as good without input from professors and other students,” Solid said.
The film itself opts for fluid motion and simple bright colors in an attempt to break out of the sometimes rigid feel of 3-D animations. It tells the story of a match attempting to light himself (quite unsuccessfully at first) to fulfill his destiny. The final image of happiness in death tugs at a range of emotions, and clever twists such as the match accidentally splitting himself to form legs shows a true creative spark.
“I wanted to give him the ability to stretch and squish more like two- dimensional animation,” Solid said. “A lot of 3-D animation is stiff. I tried to make it beautiful.”
Solid uses a program called Maya to bring her vision to life. Like traditional two-dimensional animations, each frame has to be rendered and painted separately, but other aspects, such as mathematics, come into play when moving characters around in a 3-D environment.
Now Solid is working on her thesis film for the final stage of the three-year Animation Workshop program. It will be computer animated, similar to “Match Scratch Fever,” but the concept is still undecided.
“I have so many ideas in my head. The problem is deciding which idea is right for this film,” Solid said.
After she completes the course for her M.F.A., she plans on making her own films, though it’s virtually impossible to make a career out of it. Working at Film Roman (The Simpsons, King of the Hill) has given her some experience in the industry, but she hopes to pursue teaching or web design to supplement her filmmaking.
A benefit of 3-D animation Solid plans on exploiting is its relatively low cost. A five-minute live-action film can cost upwards of $1000, but animations are much cheaper. “Match Scratch Fever” cost less than $200.
“The most important thing is that I really want to continue making films,” Solid said. “I’ll find a way when I have some money set aside.”