1) What have you been up to since we last spoke in Nov. '19 for Affurmative Action?

I went to Barcelona in January, it's a pretty big skate mecca so it was really rad. Movies wise, I made a short film called "Department Of Injustice" that Oscilloscope commissioned. Also a lot of editing, pretty much been solely editing since the pandemic.

2) What was the initial idea for this project and how did it evolve from there?

A friend of mine loaned me an iPad which I always wanted to try animating on. It's a game changer, so I knew I wanted to make a project on it. My mom is always leaving me entertaining voicemails and this one just felt particularly visual, so it seemed like a good fit.

3) What was the biggest challenge in making this film? And the easiest part?

Finding the style took a while, with the ipad there's so many possibilities, it took longer than usual to figure out the visuals. The easiest part was definitely having the time to do it, I made it in March-May while on heavy lock down, so I could just work at my own pace and not be fried from doing other work.

4) What’s a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why?

I saw Coco for the first time on halloween. The story was just so good and had a lot of twists, also the animation was amazing.

5) What’s next for you?

I'm trying to expand Affurmative Action into a feature documentary. I want to take a deeper look into the lack of diversity in advertising and how to fix it. I've never made a feature so it's been a lot more planning and researching then I'm familiar with, but it's been going well so far.

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https://elshatrab.com/ | IG: @elshatrab