Polyester Studio in Toronto just dropped their latest in-house short film called Passage, a surreal mix of cel and 3D animation they describe as “a man’s journey inward as he strives for peace in the moments after death.”

Polyester partner/CD Jeremy Dimmock: “The film is about our studio partner Bob and his death in 2019. We started storyboarding it during the early days of Covid as a form of catharsis in dealing with his loss.

“The idea is based on the moment between the body dying and the brain dying when a dream-like world from that person’s existence is created and they make a journey to find peace with their death.

“Our hero in this case wakes up in a hotel room that is both familiar to him and different. Elements of his life appear throughout as the world is an extension of himself. He’s finding that his life is flashing back in moments and that he must find an escape from this purgatory.

“He soon realizes he is being tracked by a dark creature that is a physical manifestation of his shortcomings, regrets, mistakes, and fears… it’s the darkness that stops us from fulfilling our potential that he must confront.

“Over the years we spent working on the film between client jobs, I noticed how the story changed. We started with the central character being based on Bob and his life. But over time, we started to see ourselves as the lead character dealing with the loss of our friend and the challenges of processing the grief that comes with it.”
 

 
Production: Polyester Studio
Director: Polyester Studio
Producer: Alyssa Molfetta, Robyn Smale
Storyboard: SJ Lee
Character design: Lily Chiao, SJ Lee
Background design: Jinke Wang, Yanqiu Ma, Lily Chiao
Compositor/pre-viz: Oliver Dead
Cel animator: SJ Lee, Lily Chiao, Sasha Bogolyubova, Joan Chung, Inés Fragueiro, Dan Siddiqui, Alex Zhang, Michael Rillo, Bruno Brasil, Marylou Mao, Oliver Dead, Daniel Hwang, Roberio Reis, Thiago Geremias, Caio Scombatt, Fhilipe Marmori, Ridaa Khan, Lan Nguyen
3D animator: Luis Campos
Type: Sam Dubeau

Music/sound design: Jeff Moberg
Vocals: Julie Neff
Mix: Jeff Moberg

For our friend Bob 1975-2019