Ash Sunday - 2001

A drawing, formed in a swirl of dust, awakens to find herself trapped on an empty, dimensionless square of paper.

Watch the film

I completed this film as a Senior Fellow at Dartmouth. I wanted to utilize my strengths in figure drawing while trying a new technique, painting on glass. I used what I learned about cut-outs in April Showers, to animate the paper square which confined the drawing.  I placed the drawing under a 1/4" sheet of glass and painted on top of the glass. While experimenting with this technique, I ran into trouble with the cast shadow of the paint so I enhanced the side lighting and simple worked the shadow into the plot of the film (sometimes this is the best way to solve a technical problem :o)

   I shot the film over 3 months, using various layers of paper pasted on cels, paint on cel and paint on glass to get the different effects.

Awards:

Regional Finalist, Student Academy Awards 2002

1st Prize, Student Animation, ASIFA-East 2002

People's Choice, ASIFA-San Francisco, September 2002

Screenings:

2003 -   National Gallery of Art, Children’s Film Program

Cleveland International Film Festival

East Lansing Children's Film Festival

Orinda Film Festival

2002 -   Chicago International Children's Film Festival

New England Film and Video Festival

West Coast Student Film Festival

2001 -   Puchon International Student Animation Festival

            Auburn International Film Festival

Production Info:

Title: Ash Sunday

Director: Corrie Francis

Original Music:

    Michael Chen - cello, guitar

    Joel Wickre - lead guitar

    Jay Liu - violin

    Dan Colvard - Viola

Sound Editors: Eugene Kim, Stevie Clifton

Running Time: 5 min 30 sec

Screening Format: 16mm/1.33/Color/Optical Mono Sound

Copyright 2001 Corrie Francis

Distribution: Corrie Francis

Bio:

Corrie Francis is a freelance animator and photographer based in South Lake Tahoe, California.  A classically trained animator with an MFA from University of Southern California in Los Angeles, she has recently shifted her focus to documentary and is exploring how drawn images can imaginatively compliment documented reality. Corrie’s animation emphasizes the integration of digital and traditional mediums and a dialogue between technique and mediums. She has worked with sand, paint on glass, cut-outs and hand-drawn mediums. She recently spent 15 months in New Zealand as a Fulbright Fellow while working on her 5^th film, Conversing with Aotearoa/New Zealand and enjoys wandering in and out of the world’s beautiful landscapes as she creates her films.