How do we process our fears and distress? Where do we start to heal through our own inner journey?

I’ve been fascinated by the idea of calling myself an animator, but that’s the medium in which I work to make my finished product. In the back woods of Bremerton, Washington, I’m questioning my role of as a filmmaker. In the community pool with summers spent with my grandparents, I am a researcher doing my best to place what I’ve captured in context – and in the library I find art, history, and what lies within the human brain.

By referring to the cycle of the Hero’s Journey by Joseph Campbell, as well as the transitional states of the human mind, my film investigates emotional experiences of everyday life. The result features an animated short, designed and informed by my research methods, in this case, my current film entitled Underwater.

Underwater is a three minute long animated short film based on emotional struggle and the Hero’s Journey narrative structure. A girl begins at the public pool, dipping in for a swim. But soon this girl finds herself swimming deeper, only to find the pool transforms into the ocean abyss. The concept of the water represents the reality transitioning into the subconscious. As the girl enters this state of mind, an octopus appears, teasing her to follow. It is now the girl alone with the octopus to find out what lies in the depths below.