COVID Dystopia won an award as the Best Animated Short at the Wild Rivers Film Festival in Brookings, Oregon. I always attend film festivals that accept COVID Dystopia in their line up. The film was screened three times and I managed to attend two of the screenings. at each screening I attended I answered any questions from the audience. I forgot to stand up front at the first question and answer session, but corrected my mistake for the second.
I don’t think people realize the amount of work that goes into a 5 minute short. First I produced a COVID themed painting every day for 3 years, then came the animation which took a solid year to complete. With each shot I experimented with parallax effects which added depth and extra movement to each shot.
At one of the screenings I noticed that there is a typo in the credits of the film. I need to correct that today. I had added several sentences at the end of the credits since there is so much more that needs to be said. There isn’t enough time to read what I added since the credits keep scrolling. I think I will edit it down to “We might be done with COVID, but COVID isn’t done with us.”
The result was a film that juries seemed to love to hate. Those that do like the dark vision I presented however often gave it high marks for its warped view of the American response to the pandemic. Now that most people consider the emergency to have passed, they seem more receptive to what looks like a historical look back.
The COVID Dystopia book has only 4 more spreads left to be edited. Since I am taking off for Europe, I will not start the printing run until I get back to the United States. Today I start the process of packing my life away into a storage unit. I suspect the trip will begin in September since a week isn’t enough time to pull all the elements together for the trip. The film festival and a 4 day roa trip to my sister Juanita’s funeral have upset any timely plans to leave August 31.