Junior Emma Cieri at North Harford has taken her skills in art and drawing and has used them to create video animations. Last year Cieri won the NH Film Festival in the animation category.

      “I was inspired by the people on the internet and seeing everyone else doing it, It made me want to try it as well,” says Cieri. “I mainly work with digital art using my IPad and Apple Pencil. I prefer digital because of the way you are able to manipulate the image to be how you want it.”  She added that if you make a mistake on paper “you have to redo the whole thing while with digital you can just circle it and change it, I love the undo button.” 

     Cieri talks about her biggest inspirations being James Baxter and Ethan Becker, both famous animators. “I am constantly referencing Ethan Becker.” She says she takes heavy influence from Disney and their character designs along with Youtube videos that are made by Becker. 

      “I live and breathe through my own characters,” Cieri, speaking about one of her original characters that she created, says.

     “Seeing my character come to life in animation makes me want to become more like her,” Cieri says that she finds herself mimicking the behaviors of some of the characters she has. Her process sometimes finds herself making silly faces trying to mimic the look they have on her face to her drawing. She mentions how she “channels” herself through her character’s. She says “a lot of analysis goes into animation.”

      Although Cieri finds herself at times struggling with her animation and finding the motivation to do it. She states how her back pain can make it hard to sit comfortably and animate for long periods of time. Many of her friends also animate and she says, “with art it can be hard to get motivation to do it.”