Kirsten Lepore first gained recognition in the animation world with her well received and aptly named 2008 short film ‘Sweet Dreams’, the uplifting love story of a cupcake that sets out on journey across the sea and gets stranded on an island of vegetables. She returns here, with ‘Bottle’, to her winning theme of far fetched love across the water.
The charming 2010 short film, animated on location, won second place at the Bafta LA Student Film Awards, and the ‘Best Student Animation’ at the Stuttgart Int’l Animation Fest, and the Animation Conversation‘s Annecy+ ‘Best Of’.
Kirsten tells us about the shoot:
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The entire production took 9 months from conception of idea to final editing, although the actual shooting time was around one or two days a week over the course of about 4 months or so. Each shoot day was about 8 hours, since I could only shoot in the daylight.
Most of the snow shots were done in either Frazier Mountain Park (an hour north of Valencia, California) or at Big Bear Lake. All the beach shots were done in Malibu.
The inspiration for the piece began with the technique and the materials. I knew I wanted to make an animation with snow and sand on location, so I subsequently devised a story that would weave the two together and allow me to experiment with a new medium.
Kirsten recently made it to Creativity Magazine’s list of the top 50 “category defying” creative people of 2011.
