UCLA grad student’s animation on fire

No lights, no actors, no crew ““ artists like Kristin Solid
take the term “independent filmmaker” to the next
level.

As a third-year graduate student in the UCLA film, television
and digital media department’s Animation Workshop, Solid has
written, directed, and animated several award-winning short films.
Her latest, a five-minute 3-D animated film called “Match
Scratch Fever,” has won a slew of laurels from film festivals
nationwide and was recently announced as a finalist in the 7th
annual Angelus Awards, which offers a grand prize of $10,000.

While the Angelus Awards offers a hefty sum of prize money, that
kind of cash is far from the norm and certainly not the reason to
get involved in the festival circuit. Solid gets satisfaction
simply from exhibiting her art, which is the product of an
extremely personal vision and months of independent work.

“I find it really rewarding to be part of a festival and
to have people get to know my work,” Solid said. “A
film like this is part of your personality, part of who you
are.”

Whereas live-action film requires collaboration between people
from many fields of expertise, short animation pieces can be a
completely self-contained piece of work. For “Match Scratch
Fever,” Solid guided the film from the original idea through
story boards and finally the 3-D animation; the only aspect she
didn’t personally create was the score. She sticks closely to
the mantra of the Animation Workshop ““ one person, one
film.

Yet, Solid isn’t completely isolated. Apart from
influences like animator Rich Quade (a graduate of the Animation
Workshop and supervising animator for Pixar’s “Toy
Story,” “Toy Story 2″ and “Monsters,
Inc.”), she utilizes the student filmmakers around her.

“I know my film wouldn’t be nearly as good without
input from professors and other students,” Solid said.

The film itself opts for fluid motion and simple bright colors
in an attempt to break out of the sometimes rigid feel of 3-D
animations. It tells the story of a match attempting to light
himself (quite unsuccessfully at first) to fulfill his destiny. The
final image of happiness in death tugs at a range of emotions, and
clever twists such as the match accidentally splitting himself to
form legs shows a true creative spark.

“I wanted to give him the ability to stretch and squish
more like two- dimensional animation,” Solid said. “A
lot of 3-D animation is stiff. I tried to make it
beautiful.”

Solid uses a program called Maya to bring her vision to life.
Like traditional two-dimensional animations, each frame has to be
rendered and painted separately, but other aspects, such as
mathematics, come into play when moving characters around in a 3-D
environment.

Now Solid is working on her thesis film for the final stage of
the three-year Animation Workshop program. It will be computer
animated, similar to “Match Scratch Fever,” but the
concept is still undecided.

“I have so many ideas in my head. The problem is deciding
which idea is right for this film,” Solid said.

After she completes the course for her M.F.A., she plans on
making her own films, though it’s virtually impossible to
make a career out of it. Working at Film Roman (The Simpsons, King
of the Hill) has given her some experience in the industry, but she
hopes to pursue teaching or web design to supplement her
filmmaking.

A benefit of 3-D animation Solid plans on exploiting is its
relatively low cost. A five-minute live-action film can cost
upwards of $1000, but animations are much cheaper. “Match
Scratch Fever” cost less than $200.

“The most important thing is that I really want to
continue making films,” Solid said. “I’ll find a
way when I have some money set aside.”