#DRAGONFRAME STUDENT HOW TO#
#DRAGONFRAME STUDENT TRIAL#

For my masters thesis, I created an illustrated book called Bruja. It’s all linked for me-just different tools to tell a variety of stories. I recently completed an MFA in Visual Narrative from SVA which blends creative writing with visual development of all kinds, where medium and format can be anything you’re interested in. I do a mix of graphic design, illustration, and other sorts of narrative work. How do you think your other creative work influences your filmmaking? I’m not trying to make any statements of right or wrong or criticize someone else by just sharing an experience. Ideally, it’s hard for people to get upset when you’re just sharing a personal experience-I mean, one would hope. I try to be an honest and forthright person, both in my beliefs and in the way that I tell stories. Overall, I’m lucky that, especially from family and friends, the responses have been really positive.

#DRAGONFRAME STUDENT TRIAL#

What was that process like? Was it trial and error? I had to develop a system where all these ideas could exist in one world, where I could make stop-motion puppets, do cut paperwork, and work with type. I wanted the audience to be able to identify the character throughout so it wouldn’t be jarring. Part of the challenge (and the pleasure, because I really do like working with different materials) was in creating a system where these media could all live in one story but still have continuity. It also gave me the freedom to play with different elements in a single story.Īny challenges that accompanied this medley? I could draw and build but I didn’t have a background in filmmaking or in live-action, so this blending of techniques really suited me.

#DRAGONFRAME STUDENT HOW TO#

I could only understand how to tell the story by working through the materials. It’s funny because to most people, those seem like very complicated and time-consuming approaches (and they definitely are), but to me, they made the most sense. I had incorporated multimedia in my own design and illustration work but The Shochet was my first real film.Ī lot of films I had seen and admired, especially the shorts, were handmade and stop-motion. I came into this project as a designer and illustrator, very much a maker of all kinds. Why did you decide to mix media and animation techniques? I was very lucky that my grandmother started writing some of these stories down and I chose this particular story because it was funny but also really telling about her community and the tradition they were trying to hold onto in a space that didn’t necessarily welcome that. While my grandmother’s community is somewhat unique, her story is really the story of so many immigrants, people who came from nothing and had to make it work in an environment that was so drastically different from their homes (in this case, from Poland and Russia to Costa Rica). She came from a small Jewish immigrant community in Costa Rica and I always loved traveling back in time by listening to her tell stories. The Shochet is based on one of my grandmother’s stories. Tell us about the inspiration for the film. In light of AT&T’ Entertainment Group’s newest challenge, this seemed an opportune moment to catch up with Michelle, both in acknowledgement of her great achievement and to reflect on the continuing vitality of film, especially for emerging and student artists.

Incredibly, The Shochet was Michelle’s first film - it is, as she describes it, ‘a coming of age story, with blood and chickens,’ using mixed media animation to reimagine a compelling piece of family history. Louis, and Michelle was excited to find AT&T’s competition well-suited for her work. T he film was her capstone project for a Communication Design BFA at Washington University in St. Michelle Nahmad is a Brooklyn-based artist whose film, The Shochet, won the Student Film division of the 2017 SHAPE AT&T Entertainment Project.

Dragonframe student