The lovely stop-motion gem, “Nevada,” finds its young couple in a birth control predicament, which opens up a series of intimate conversations about their future. We asked director Emily Ann Hoffman about the origins of the project, how she built her animated world, and achieving a realistic relationship with puppets…

1) Can you talk briefly about your background, and how you first got interested in animation?

I've known I wanted to be an artist for as long as I can remember. I went to RISD to study illustration and started taking some animation classes my junior year. While learning animation, I felt like everything clicked: I enjoyed the storytelling capabilities of a time-based medium and animation simultaneously allowed me to flex my visual art muscles. I never realized how much I enjoyed writing and storytelling until I found animation.

2) What inspired this project initially? Can you talk a bit about the different stages of development? How long did the whole project take? There’s some much detail in every setup and movement. It’s so beautifully crafted.

This story came from personal experiences of having to take Plan B and talking to girlfriends about their similar emergency contraceptive experiences. I realized this was a super common occurrence, but no one was talking about it openly, and more often than not, our male partners had no idea what to do. I wanted to make this film to de-stigmatize the topic and hopefully open up a dialogue for future partners in this situation.

First of all, thank you! You have to build your worlds from scratch in animation, so I'm always happy to hear all the intentional details are appreciated. After the script was locked, the project took about 9 months (which I find very apt.) First came storyboards, voice acting, design, and animatics. (Animatics are elaborate storyboard images timed to the radio edit of the film, to plan out the animation exactly). When we recorded our voice actors, we also took video footage of their faces from multiple angles, so we could rotoscope their faces in hand-drawn animation onto the stop-motion puppets in post. Next came fabrication, which meant building the puppets and everything in their world! The puppets are made with wire armature skeletons, carved foam bodies, an acrylic/latex mix for their skin. Then was stop motion animation, and finally 2D animated faces applied on top. As well as the other standard post-production tasks of original score, sound and color. Phew!

3) You create this amazing sense of intimacy with your characters and your sets. Even though it doesn’t look necessarily life-like, everything seems so real. Can you talk about some techniques you used to create this realistic effect? And perhaps some things you learned or realized in the process?

I think the reality and intimacy comes from three elements: the story itself, my actors, and the specificity of the world. 

For the story, as mentioned, a lot of the inspiration came from personal experience. I was thinking about how I talked and acted in these scenarios, and how people I've been with have talked and acted. I wanted my audience to recognize themselves and their friends in these characters. And to recognize the true intimacy of these scenes, not the way that intimacy is typically portrayed in movies. 

Then I was so happy to have found Chet Siegel (Zoe) and Jonathan Randell Silver (Eli). One of the reasons why I don't like a lot of mainstream animation is because I find the voice acting to be so grating. I knew from the beginning that I wanted my actors to act with realism, as opposed to cartoonish voices. Chet and Jonathan both delivered on that perfectly and brought the characters to the next level with the ease and candor of their performances. 

Lastly, what I learned as an animator from this film, is that what gets audiences to relate to your characters most of all is small, specific, human actions. I had so much fun animating tiny things like Zoe crumpling the plastic shopping bag, Eli scrolling on his phone, and putting a pillow behind his head. I've tried to keep growing that animation practice since making this.

4) What is a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that really resonated with you, and why?

I feel like I've seen a lot of great films recently, but I'll stick to two:

1. Spiderverse knocked my socks off. I was SO HAPPY to see such a unique and well-executed mainstream animated film. It was well-written, well-acted, and my lord was the animation style fantastic. So glad to finally see a different style of animation up on the big screen. And to see a diverse range of well-rounded characters being celebrated! I hope Hollywood takes note and we start to see more unique animations with big budgets... 

2. I recently rewatched Moonstruck. Cher. Young Nicholas Cage. The moon. Opera. New York. The 80's. Need I say more??

5) What’s next for you?

I'm glad you asked! I'm currently in production on a new animated short film called Blackheads. It's about a woman coping with bad therapy, heartbreak, and... blackheads! We just recently launched a Kickstarter to fund post production. You can check the campaign page out for more info on the film and see some sneak peaks of the animation and sets. We really appreciate any donations and shares!! Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/emilyannhoffman/blackheads-an-animated-short-film

Contact Info:

IG and Twitter: @emilyannimation.