Raquel Bumgarner

BA New Media

Website: https://fiarfliart.tumblr.com/

ARTIST STATEMENT: “Growing Flames” is an animated short film focuses on finding peace within disaster. It explores how we can avoid blaming ourselves for problems outside of our control. What can we do to make meaningful changes in the world around us and keep motivation towards that change? The main characters, Nula and Keelan, struggle with these questions, finding different answers to them as they go through a rough morning in a world in turmoil due to a series of events that occurred before their time. I made this animation in response to the climate disasters we are experiencing in our own time and place.

The backgrounds for “Growing Flames” were made with Clip Studio Paint, with most of the scenes animated in Clip Studio and composed using Premiere. I created the music and sound effects using beepbox.co and jummbus.bitbucket.io with the help of my friend Fiona Passino. Some additional sounds for dialogue were made using a python-based animalese generator. I chose to make an animation rather than a comic or illustration to explore these questions because of how people are captivated by film, as well as my own love for the media.