Universities and schools can be affiliated with internships and amateur output at times. However, Brigham Young University’s Center for Animation continues to uphold a tradition of excellence with another award-winning short animated movie “Kites.”
Kites masterfully uses images — no dialogues and very little special effects — to convey in five minutes a tale about loss. First shown in the Provo campus of BYU last week, Kites is the eighth straight animated short feature to bag the national student Emmy.
It tells the story of a small boy struggling with the loss of his grandfather. One day, his grandfather shows up on a kite and invites the boy to ride with him to the afterlife.
“It’s easy to make someone laugh in two or three minutes,” shared the director R. Brent Adams, who knew that the format of the film is a risk. “It’s much harder to touch someone in two or three minutes. I knew it was a big risk because I know how hard it is.”
Around 40 students put in hard work on “Kites” for 1 1/2 years, at an estimated cost of only $40,000, a fraction of what is spent in a Hollywood animated feature. At one point last summer, they had to work through the project with no air conditioning, under risk of overheating the computers. “Every single day was a grind,” recalled co-producer James Jackson.
BYU’s Center of Animation takes pride in its ability to get placements for their graduates in prestigious animation studios such as Pixar and Dreamworks. “We have about a 90 percent placement in either major game companies or major film studios,” says Adams.
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