As a young adult, it is easy to feel like you’ve failed the transition into adulthood – metamorphosing into something completely different from what was expected of you as a child. I decided to express these feelings of inadequacy, regret, and grief in a 2D-animated video because of my love for animation and the medium’s storytelling potential. To represent this inner turmoil, I studied the horror film genre and made use of insect imagery. The protagonist had expected to be a butterfly, but is filled with self-loathing as they had become a moth instead. Their contempt for themselves and other, more “ideal” creatures grows, eventually culminating in a violent act of destruction and a failed rebirth.
I love indie music videos that combine hand-drawn animation and digital motion effects, so I decided to emulate that aesthetic for my work. I used various skills I developed at Ara, such as character design, storyboarding, hand-drawn animation, and motion graphics in Adobe After Effects. I hope to use these skills in my future professional and personal endeavours.
