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They’ve since been one of four honorees for the 2023 Humanitas Prize, the first time in history that a non-Disney/Pixar animated short has been nominated.įor the voiceover, it was essential to reach Jerusha and Jared’s vision for the character of Coy. However, our talented writers, Chris Bowman, and Hubbel Palmer, delivered an extraordinary story surrounding the five senses and tied it together with one compelling character named Coy. So, imagine when we tasked our writers with this challenge how difficult it must have been: “Hey, please tell a story where six disparate styles could all make sense in one story!” We were not sure what to expect. We intended to have a finished project that would highlight the differences in talents of each animation team, giving these animators a showcase piece for future work. It’s common for many animators to work on a film project, but typically, all those animators would have to adhere to the style guides and looks of the design for the film, characters, and backgrounds. The most challenging part of this project was determining how we could highlight the very individual and unique styles of six different animators.

Due to the work Salt Lake Film Society does within the Mexican community and other cultural outreach, SLFS also tapped animators within our reach who are from other regions internationally, including Gabriela Badillo, who has an extraordinary animation project for language preservation called 68 Voces. Our animators were selected through our Springboard discovery and nurturing contests.

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The resulting film production for Ninety-Five Senses came about and allowed our animators to work with professional directors, writers, and actors on a production. They, of course, have an affinity for artists in Utah and are very supportive of the Film Society’s non-profit mission to exhibit, create, and preserve cinematic experiences, so they were generous enough to offer their support in directing an innovative approach to an animation project.

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We did this through a series of fellowship programs that mentored talent through labs and the production of this short film.Įarly in the process, we approached writer/director talents Jared and Jerusha Hess ( Napoleon Dynamite, Nacho Libre, the upcoming Minecraft) about being involved as mentors. Our MAST vision was to turn those artists into artist entrepreneurs who could potentially create projects in Utah that would then create an economic infrastructure here that could support animation production in the state. Utah has a rich animation culture within the universities however, we continued to get feedback that once graduation passed, talented animators were leaving the state of Utah for jobs. We workshopped a concept of creatingĪ project with the Salt Lake Film Society that would mentor post-graduate emerging filmmakers, specifically with a focus on animation. I founded an artist’s mentoring project with Miles David Romney called MAST (Media Accelerator Studio), which aims to turn artists into artist-entrepreneurs. Ninety-Five Senses, a short film produced through MAST, was recently nominated for a 2024 Best Animated Short Oscar.Ĭan you talk about how Ninety-five Senses came together through MAST? What was the development process like? Its program includes a fellowship, labs, mentorship, career advocacy, networking, contests, productions, and funding. This Salt Lake City-based organization provides grants, training, and mentorship to filmmakers and animators, particularly on projects that change minds and the world. Baker, who in addition to serving as CEO and president of the Salt Lake Film Society is vice chair of The Cinema Foundation and a founder/producer for MAST. Image courtesy Film and Media Alliance of Southern Utah