Daisy Jacobs’ new short, “The Full Story,” is many things: real, poignant, uniquely animated, and sometimes hard to watch. “I was interested in the idea of family break-ups and how people part ways,” the director told us. “I wrote the script about a child who is confused and caught up in his parents divorce and feels helpless. I wanted the surroundings to reflect how the child was feeling, so used a very dense patterned environment – to show how overwhelmed he felt.”

The environment, which actually begins to interact and respond to the emotional turmoil of the piece, is its own entity in this moving story. “I was also interested in how the boy as an adult would feel and reflect on this period in his life and that we can never really know why people choose to leave each-other and things are never that simple, hence the title ‘The Full Story’,” Jacobs said. Explaining one of the most visceral parts of the short, she said, “This time we used real people to blur between reality and forgotten memory.”

When asked about their process, Jacobs told us, “We worked in a hanger on a naval base for ten months creating this film. It was very isolated most days just myself and my co-director Christopher Wilder animating for long hours and six or seven days a week. We were able in the isolation to really get into the work, without distraction, and really become the characters we were animating.”

Chris and she animated the six-foot characters in a strait ahead technique, meaning you paint over your previous frame and have to instinctively know where you are going next as you can’t make corrections as such. “I find this way of working is more intense and somehow more creative as you really get into the flow. At times we would have four characters singing and giggling to navigate whilst also on a moving camera and animating a lighting change, all at the
same time. This really did push us both to our limits.”

The payoff, in this case, seems entirely worth it. Looking forward to seeing where this piece goes at awards time. Meanitime, the duo are now working on their first feature film, a poetic romantic comedy. Jacobs has been writing the script and making an animatic for two years now. We can’t wait!