Izzy's Demons
Director: Greg Garay
United States, 2020, 7 min
Shooting Format:Digital
Festival Year:2021
Category:Animation
Genre:Drama
Cast:Chinwe Okona, Robin K. Johnson
Crew:Writer: Greg Garay. Producers: Jumai Yusuf, Alexa Velasquez. Lead Animator: Greg Garay; In-Betweeners: Mariel Jones, Pedro Edmonds, Taylor Woods; Lead Background Artist: Greg Garay; Colorists: Marcia Cagandahan, Diana Gong, Erika Gomi, Futo Wada, Taylor Woods, Sam Kipperman, Tiffany Kao, EeJoon Choi; Background Colorist: WanCi Hua; 3D Animation: Simon Burdick, Kenae Lowry; Editor: Greg Garay; Compositing: Greg Garay, Mariam Khayat; Music Composition: Austin Hammonds, Dave Lewis; Sound Design: James Grisom, Chris Hernandez; Sound Mix: Rich Hyland; Production Manager: Marteen Garay; Faculty Advisor: Shelly "Trixy" Wattenbarger, Kathy Smith, David Fain, Josh Staub
Email:garayg@usc.edu
Synopsis
Izzy is a person who struggles with the decision to reconnect with an old friend. As she gives into her jealousy for her friend's success, she makes a decision that her subconscious does not let her get away with so easy.
Her relationship with this person is splayed in front of her and she realizes that something isn't adding up. Memories start taking a turn for the worse and she realizes why they aren't talking to each other.
Only when she confronts her anxieties can she be released from her subconscious.
Trailer
About the director
My goal is to create animated projects starring unfamiliar leading characters of many beautiful colors, sizes, and shapes for streaming services, television, and other emergent delivery systems.
I'm a storyboard artist, animator & visual artist, based in Los Angeles. I'm a recent graduate of the Masters program at the School of Cinematic Arts at USC and a graduate of New York Institute of Technology.
My work is about a connection to dreams, our unconscious biases, identity, and how hope is born and lost.
Filmmaker's note
Izzy's Demons is a 2D animation that explores the persistence of a person's subconscious to explore the things a person ignores.
The goal was to create a fever/anxiety dream based on a seemingly careless choice. I want the audience to understand the levels of analysis an anxious person experiences from what many may perceive to be a small decision. I wanted to tie into universal concepts such as shame, guilt, pride, forgiveness through a liminal space where anything could happen.
The film is inspired by my own time dealing with anxiety in everyday living. Sometimes a false narrative is built as a coping mechanism. The false narrative justifies the decisions you make, even if they are bad ones.
Stylistically I used heavily saturated colors as a tribute to my caribbean heritage. The character style is influenced by Bruce Smith, and Looney Toons character designs and animation i grew up watching.
Izzy as a narrator is trying to coach herself through an anxiety dream - having a conversation with inner herself. Sometimes in dreams, people can sense their presence as both a narrator while simultaneously being an actor within the landscape of the dream. The narration serves the purpose of recreating that aspect of dreaming.