Old LesbiansCLIENT: Compostudio
ROLE: Art director and lead animator
ABOUT Inspired by the warmth and tactility of scrapbooks and the contained, layered qualities of Joseph Cornell's shadow boxes, we used stop-motion and digital collage techniques to animate objects and stories from a vast archival trove maintained by the Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project (OLOHP). The visual language follows the narrative’s three acts: “Inklings,” about childhood; “Ah-Ha,” about young queer adulthood; and “Herstory,” about maturity and retrospection. Each act is punctuated by a stop-motion-animated shadow box: these represent the collective identity of the women cataloged by OLOHP at each stage of life. The animation visualizes narration from individual women’s perspectives, using visual metaphor and historical artifacts (like vintage buttons) to give context and tangibility to their voices.
We animated around fifteen minutes of animation in just under two months.
Watch the film here.
STILLS
MOOD BOARD
COLOR PALETTE
- Director and Editor: Meghan McDonough
- Cinematographer and Creative Director: Rengim Mutevellioglu
- Art Director and Lead Animator: Marcie LaCerte
- Producer: Stevie Borrello
- Cinematographer: Cassie Coker
- Animator: Dani Nunes
- Sound Designer and Composer: Tori Abreu dos Santos
- Production Counselor: Matthew Rogers
- Research Assistants: Cassidy Duncan, Helena Ravix, Sheridan Cole
- Digital Intermediate Services: Sodalite Color
- Re-recording Mixer: Sam Beneitone, Tori Abreu dos Santos
- Colorist: Tam Le
- DI Coordinator: John Daniels-Riveros