Oh man, I have a lot to say about this one.
So, this is Kenopsia, my thesis film from my final year at SVA. It was a contained disaster, to say the least.
However, before I go on a long tangent about this film, I must first credit those who helped me!
***
Voices by
Thalass - Derek Bolz heyddderek
Achluo - Mike Picone foneycone
Score by
stillcrisp still_crisp
Sound Design by
Tony Senatore tiredcartoonist
Credits Song by
Bliss3three bliss3three
Credits Visuals by
Andrew Johnson tofokyo
Animation by
River Lai raainby
Nate DeDeurwaerdeur DeDeur_
Compositing by
Myself, with the assistance of Courtney Vonada cvonada_art
Effects + Additional Animation by
Lillian
Backgrounds by
Evelyn Conway illustrativefae
Ethan Menegakis IntoEkinzone
StrawberryPunk strawberry__punk
Anahi Garcia ohmepee
Amanda Chew avi.sketches
Raziel Ortiz keperaz
Domrom DomRomArt
Cleanup by
Catherine Krahn linethickness.newgrounds.com/
Brandon Rivers Br1VerZ
Jordan Brafman jremby
Ryan Kelso x.com/RGPAnims
River Lai raainby
Izzy Franceschi x.com/invisible_inky
Martin Velez papitapowers
Xiaofu Zhu xiaofu_zhu
Karla Amador x.com/Cymbourine
Zach Rios Mungeons
**
The people who helped me out with this film were fantastic, and I'm forever grateful for those who contributed.
I'm also grateful for the artist Bliss3three, who's first album heavily inspired the seedling idea this film sprouted from.
I was also extremely excited when they gave me permission to use a song of theirs in the film after asking if I could.
A lot of cool things happened because of this film. But when I say contained disaster, I mainly mean how this film made me feel for a long time.
I hit my deadlines, I handled production to the best of my ability, and turned in a film that allowed me to graduate.
However, for a long time I only felt disdain for this film. I felt it was very weak, especially compared to what I wanted to do with it.
Horror is not an easy genre, especially with something like this. It requires strong pacing, taking your time, and building tension so that dread you feel swells. I wanted that, but I feel with my limited time with this idea, I could not accomplish what I set out to do.
I described to my friends that looking back at this film now is like taking a bite out a loaf of bread, only to find the middle soggy and under baked. I still like the idea, I still like the characters, I still dream of dead malls, but I just simply didn't have the chops to make this what I wanted it to be just yet.
It was at least, at the end of the day, a learning experience. A film that took me well over a year to make almost pales in comparison to my recent film that I finished just within a month. Of course there's a lot to factor in about these things, like how I was taking several other taxing classes on top of working on my thesis film. But still, as much as I feel strange about this film now, I at least know that I have grown since its creation. I felt so destroyed and broken after finishing something to this scale, and am now lucky enough to know I've healed over since.
So, with that, I hope you all have a wonderful fall, and an especially frightening October.
And thank you for supporting me :)