emPOWER through Animation: An animated interview
By: Bri Goolsby ‘22
Advising Faculty: Nadav Assor
Majors: Film Studies
Project/Mission Statement
emPOWER through Animation is an animated interview that highlights artists of color through animation, a medium that has a tendency to be used in oppressive ways towards communities of color. The project counteracts the racist or dehumanizing depictions of people of color often found in animation by interviewing Juanita Austin and Josh Brown, artists I worked with during my time as a video and media intern for Cultured AF during the summer of 2021.The focus of the interview centers around the question: What empowers you?This prompts the interviewees to speak about their art and inspire young artists of color to continue honing their craft. The interview was created using AdobePhotoshop rotoscope animation, a form of frame-by-frame animation that consists of drawing over individual frames of a video to create an animated one.I also used Adobe After Effects and Comixify for additional background animation. I chose these styles of animation in particular because I wanted the interview subjects to remain humanized.
Related Fields: Ammerman Center