The Black Disquisition
With no way to film during COVID lockdown, I combined traditional animation techniques and machine learning to bring director Quincy Ledbetter's vision to life.
Production During Lockdown
Professional actors self-filmed in home settings and one Chicago park location. I constructed 3D digital sets inspired by Amazon's Undone series, which Ledbetter had directed within. The constraint of COVID became a creative catalyst - the distance between actors and sets gave the film an otherworldly quality.
A Hybrid Pipeline
The workflow was unlike anything I'd done before: painted gouache renderings, rotoscoping cleanup, machine learning style processing via Cartoonizer AI, followed by a four-month hand roto-brushing phase - removing actors, hair artifacts, microphone cords - and final After Effects compositing with color correction. Every frame was touched multiple times.
Festival Run
The completed work screened at 11+ festivals including Vancouver International Film Festival, Urbanworld, and Woodstock. It received multiple awards and distribution through AfroPop on YouTube.