'A Long Way From Home' - Animated Short

A Long Way From Home

Animated Short Film by Andy Tai, Eduardo Enriquez

In an old western tavern, the fate of a town is about to change when an outsider arrives and doesn’t have the money to pay for a glass of water. 

When creating this film, we were highly influenced by directors, Akira Kurosawa and Sergio Leone. We are both huge fans of Kurosawa’s framing and composition, and his dramatic use of lighting. Sergio Leone’s famous western films such as Once upon a Time in the West, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly also made an impact for creating our story. We have incorporated their techniques to enhance the editing and layout for our film. Since we are two international students from different cultures, it was challenging to make a western film feel authentic. However, even though we come from different cultures, we found common ground that helped us push our story. We are both foreigners who felt like strangers at one point in our lives. In correlation to this, our story portrays a character that was once a stranger, and we hope that the audience can relate and appreciate him. It is a very exciting opportunity to create a short film and have full control of the creative process. Our short starts at a slow pace with a simple conflict. As the story progresses the tone becomes more aggressive and intense. The climax delivers an epic fight and the resolution gives the audience a twist. We also utilize some comic reliefs to contrast the intensity of the story. The characters and the set consist of realistic shading, however we are staying true to our stylized concept art. The animation will be realistic due to our use of motion capture.