Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Happy About My Depression


Last year, theater multi hyphenate and wonderful human being Elizabeth Swados called on WM Animation to help with a special project.  Ms. Swados, who had a Broadway and international hit show Runaways, is also a writer and wrote an illustrated humorous book depicting her experiences suffering with depression.  Having a lot of success with the book, Ms. Swados decided to try and turn it into an animated short film and came to us for help.  We were asked to create a one minute sizzle (as they say in the biz) to generate interest and show how Liz's crude yet whimsicaldrawing style could be modified while keeping the flavor of the original pen and ink drawings.
    Keeping a very loose drawing style using Flash and using minimal color we animated a one minute piece that introduces the main character and the premise of the film with wonderful narration by Sigourney Weaver.  Happily, the film has found most of its needed funding and we are now in the midst of the writing the screenplay in conjunction with Ms. Swados.  Executive Producing the film is Roz Lichter and Producer is Joshua Hetzler.  Music for the sizzle composed and performed by David Nelson.