Under the Dark Clouds

Under the Dark Clouds is a 2D mixed-media fantasy animation about visiting a dream world. It uses digitally hand-drawn character animation with watercolor stop-motion and crayon drawings as a background. The Main character, Stra, tends to sleep when she wants to escape from reality. One of the main characters, Beddy, lets Stra enter a dream world, where Stra faces herself and accepts her depression. This film addresses the idea of self-acceptance, and how dreams reflect our unconsciousness. 

Under the Dark Clouds won the winner of Student Design category from Los Angeles Animation Festival and has selected to many film festivals all around the world including; Warsaw Animation Film Festival(Poland), 8th Canlandıranlar(Turkey), Palm Springs Int. Animation Festival(CA), Siggraph MetroCAF(NY), The 12th Seoul International Extreme - Short Image & Film Festival(Korea), and got a Rank A from the Rookie Award. check below for more festival and award selections.

Stills

Character Design

Concept Art & Color Script

Background Idea Sketch

Awards & Film Festivals

• Winner, Student Design, Los Angeles Animation Festival, CA, 2020

• Winner, Best 2D VFX, Palm Springs Int. Animation Festival, CA, 2021

• Winner, Best Animation, Dreamer's Short Film Festival, Romania, 2021

• Winner, Best Editing, Under The Stars International Film Festival, Italy, 2021

• Winner, Creative, 2021 Cheonan international Extreme- Shorts Film Festival, South Korea, 2021

• Finalist, New York International Film Awards, NY, 2021

• Finalist, Taiwan International Student Design Competition, Taiwan, 2020

• Finalist, International Moving Film Festival, Sprain, 2021

• Cartoon Cross Columbus Ohio Animation Showcase, OH, 2024

• Russian Mental Health Film Festival, Russia, 2022

• Georgia Shorts Film Festival, GA, 2022

• Vison Feast Film Festival, New Zealand, 2022

• FilmJam, Ukraine, 2022

• Columbus International Film and Animation Festival, OH, 2021

• BAM! Festival, TX, 2021

• The Mobile Animation Film Festival, AL, 2021

• Laurus Film Festival, Moldova, Kazakhstan and Belarus., 2021

• Animae Caribe International Animation & Digital Media Festival, Trinidad and Tobago, 2021

• Kosice International Film Festival, Slovakia, 2021

• Sardinia Film Festival, Italy, 2021

• 23rd Madurai International Documentary and Short Film Festival, India, 2021

• Warsaw Animation Film Festival, Poland, 2020

• 8th Canlandıranlar, Turkey, 2020

• Siggraph MetroCAF, New York, 2020

• International Portrait Film Festival, Bulgaria, 2020

• 4th Chaniartoon 2020, Greece, 2020

• The 12th Seoul International Extreme - Short Image & Film Festival(SESIFF), South Korea, 2020

• Draft Selection & Rank A, Rookie Award, 2020

• Tbilisi International Animation Festiva, GA, 2020

• Tempus Film Festival, Belarus, 2020

• Animate, Australia, 2020

• Canberra Mental Health Film Festival, Australia, 2020

• This Is My Brave International Mental Health Film Festival, Australia, 2020

• International Student Animated Film Animafantasia Festival, Romania, 2020

• Making the Way, SVA Gallery Online Exhibition, 2020

• SVA Alumni Scholarship Awards, New York, 2020

Press

• https://www.cartoonbrew.com/sponsored-by-sva/animation-students-at-school-of-visual-arts-reveal-their-upcoming-thesis-projects-187714.html

• https://sva.edu/events/making-the-way

Synopsis / Description

Our story starts in Stra’s messy gloomy room. It’s a rainy day, she is hesitating to go out. She goes to bed and cover her eyes with hands. Then, Beddy sucks her into dreamworld where is eccentric forest. After she walks a bit, she encounters a figure sitting on the middle of rainy water pond. Beddy show umbrella in front of her. She can’t see Beddy, but grabs umbrella and pulled down into the water. She sinks down and landing on pile of broken umbrellas. She gets stressed about useless umbrellas, but goes up and try to protect the figure from the rain with broken umbrellas. As she got closer, she finds out that figure’s hand has crying eyes on it, which looks like her. It’s tear cycles to make clouds and rains. She starts to cry, hug the figure, and merge together. After she accepts herself, she is able to see Beddy. She gets closer and hug it. Beddy absorb Stra and she comes back to her room. Then she wakes up as dropping tear drops. She observe her tears and wakes up and go out of room. Beddy appears and organizes the blanket and disappears.

Stra likes sleeping because she wants to escape from reality where she is depressed and stressed. Beddy, is the imaginary character of a bed form with stretch arms, who helps her get into unconsciousness dreams. Beddy is a metaphor of hypersomnia Stra has been developed, but couldn’t realize it’s existence until she accepts her depression. The figure with crying hands is representing deep inside of Stra’s mind, who knows her pain, but can’t do anything but crying internally. Rain made with tears represent her sadness that she has been avoiding. From personal experience, I realized that avoiding the mental health issues for a long term eventually makes you numb and worse. I need to accept what I’m going through, rather than being used to it and ignoring it. This film is still a process of my own self-reflection and hopefully an acceptance.