Best Short Film Sao Paulo International Film Festival 1992
Award of Excellence PIMA Festival 1990
I worked on this film from 1988-1990. I'm very proud of it but the project was probably too ambitious. I didn't have enough time, money, energy or experience to make the film I really wanted to make. Perhaps every artist feels this way when a project is complete but I think enough time has passed now for a fair and honest evaluation. I poured everything I had into this but the rendering technique was too labour intensive. It was exhausting. I wanted to create an immersive and cathartic west coast experience- a living painting. I wanted to transport a viewer to this rugged environment in the middle of a winter storm. In the end, I simply ran out of gas. There are moments that really work but overall, the film falls a little flat. Live and learn. No regrets.
While I certainly hope to direct more films, I won't take on a project of this scope again. Even if I had the energy and resources, it wouldn't make sense to create something like this today. The world doesn't have much patience for this sort of filmmaking anyway and computers have probably rendered this approach obsolete. To me, this film is an odd but interesting time capsule both in my life and in the world of film making and animation.
