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In Conversation With Emerson Tenney

We sat down with Emerson Tenney, the visionary writer and director behind the animated short Vibrantea, for a cup of tea and an in-depth conversation with Oscar Adams. Emerson shares their journey from teaching and poetry to the world of animation, discusses the inspiration behind the film, and reveals the lessons learned along the way.

Hey Emerson! A pleasure to chat with you. Can you share a little bit about yourself and your filmmaking journey?

Yeah, it's lovely to meet you as well. I'm a writer and director based in Los Angeles, California. I grew up here and then I studied university at Brown University on the east coast, where I studied poetry and education.

I think growing up in LA, I really was opposed to the idea of going into Hollywood. I did not think that was the path that I was going to follow. I worked as a kindergarten teacher all through college, and I really thought I would continue that path after I graduated. And then when 2020 Covid hit, I moved back to Los Angeles because some teaching jobs that were lined up in New York were feeling more precarious as things were moving remote for new teachers. And it was in that kind of limbo period of time that I have always loved movies. Watching them and going alone to the theater is one of my favorite activities. And I was watching a lot of my older favorite films during COVID and a lot of them were animated.

And I'd used Final Draft before. I'd written maybe one or two short scripts in college for various activities within the university. And I said, you know, what I'm going to do just as an exercise for myself is I'm going to write a script. I have an idea for a feature, an animated feature that I'm seeing in my head that I've thought about for a couple of years, but never really had the tools to execute. And not sure that I have the tools to execute it now, but what the heck, we're all in our homes and I'm just going to. I'm going to take a crack at it. And so over the next eight-ish months, because I wasn't on a deadline.

I wrote my first animated feature titled Freesia, which is actually feeling, ironically, more and more apropos in our current climate today. At its core, it's a story about belief and the difficulty in changing our belief systems and how our beliefs really can free us or imprison us, depending on what we build for ourselves. And as I was writing that script, I thought, oh my God, this is really the synthesis of everything I loved about poetry and about education. It's image driven storytelling.

To me, the most interesting part of a poem is the images you're able to create with a few number of words. And it really opened the door for me to think I might want to try to pursue this more seriously. And along the way I was lucky enough to find some incredible mentors who really gave me a masterclass worth of notes on story structure and working within the realm of a feature structure. And then the next script that I wrote after that feature was Vibrantea, this animated short.

And I started, I was working writing other projects, but I said, I really want to understand animation from the ground up and how it works to direct this as well. And thus began in, I guess, really in earnest. We probably started in 2022, about a two and a half year process of directing and animating Vibrantea with the help of my incredible animator, Aranstad Chavari, who I found on Instagram.

Yeah. And then I. And here we are now today with that film. And I've worked on other projects that have let me get to continue to say I'm a working writer in the meantime. But that has really been a passion project that from the beginning of me saying, I think I really want to pursue screenwriting has carried me through to today.

What a journey to come to today, and could you share the story behind Vibrantea with us?

Vibrantea is about a disillusioned young waitress who has aged out of her passion as a ballerina and is currently working in a diner and has kind of lost her luster for life and the vibrancy of life. But when a new shop opens across the street, she, through a chance encounter and through the power of sense memory, is able to kind of rediscover her wonder for being alive and for the power and the vibrancy of human connection.

And I guess on a more macro level. To me, I thought this is a theme that really, you know, dance, being anyone who's been a dancer aside, can really resonate with almost anyone. I think we all experience, and are certainly experiencing now, and certainly experienced in Covid, various times of loss. And when things feel like they go gray and we wonder who we are after experiencing a loss. And how do you rediscover that spark?

And so that was something that I was really interested in exploring in this film. And to me, I think the thing that is endlessly fascinating about humanity and makes me continually curious, even when things are really difficult, is human connection and the humans around me that maybe I, in my more oblivious states, don't always notice, but in my more aware states, can really appreciate the uniqueness of. And so that's kind of what I wanted to try to capture in this film.

When I was watching along, I was just enamoured by the art direction of your film. I loved how you used colours and the lack of them in parts with black and white.

Well, in the choice of color and black and white, I thought, you know, this film doesn't have any dialogue. We really are relying very heavily on the images and, of course, also the score and the sound mixing, which I think really does bring it to life in a lot of ways.

I thought this was a very great visual marker of. To have the film be black and white to represent her state of mind and the things that maybe she's missing in her current way of moving through the world. And then as she becomes, of course, you know, the places of memory that she initially starts to go to are vibrant and full of color and whimsy. And then her real quest is to figure out how to integrate that past time of seeing the world in color into her present moment.

And so as more and more color comes into the film, as she starts to wake up to the people around her, I just thought that would be a really. A really compelling visual marker to get to see the screen change as her perspective changes.

Animation filmmaking is no small task. What were some lessons you learned from making an animated short film?

Oh, man. A lot of lessons. I think patience is probably. I'm sure anyone else working in the field of animation would say something similar as a major lesson that you take away from any project.

Vibrantea is just over 11 minutes, just a couple seconds over, and it is comprised of just around 17,000 hand drawn frames. So the time it takes to animate something like that from top to tail was around three years. But from actually starting the animation was about two and a half. And I think the staying with the confidence of the idea through a period of time that takes so long.

You know, when you're approving frames of animation that are 2 second frames and 3 second frames at a time, I think it can be very easy to a year and a half in go. What are we doing? Should we just try to cut this scene? Do we really need this?

I mean this is taking so long and it is costly and it's taking a lot of the time of our animators and our assistant animators. And I think the biggest lesson I learned was how to just maintain faith in the original integrity of the vision of the film. And to go, you know, no, we're not going to cut corners that my animator Aransta and I found ourselves maybe a year and yeah, maybe a year and a half, two years in looking at the shadows in the film. And I said, I don't think they have the depth and texture of shadows that I want. And we went, well, that's going to add another five months to change all of that.

And I think, yeah, just really continuing to believe that this 10 page script I wrote in 2021 was still as vital in 2024. Yeah, it was a really an important lesson that I think I'm going to carry with me into all the scripts I'm reading to maintain faith in the story, even when things take a long time.

Such resilience in your faith as a filmmaker and now you get to share Vibrantea with audiences. What messages do you wish your audience goes away with?

I love that question. I hope a few things. I hope that when they're watching it, the experience of watching it feels like a respite from the very loud noise that we are living in in today's world and the way we engage with content. And I hope it feels like a little moment of peace.

And then I hope that people go out into their lives after leaving the cinema and really look at the people around them more and with more curiosity and maybe more generosity in thinking that, you know, everyone really does have an innate spark that makes them colorful and beautiful as an individual and that sometimes just the mere act of noticing that can make our own lives feel so much richer and more connected.

So yeah, I think if any, if one person walks away feeling that way, I will feel incredibly satisfied.

What’s next for you, Emerson?

Emerson the director? Well, Emerson the screenwriter is working on a few things. Some live action features, Developing live action feature right now for an animation company actually that is beginning its foray into live action and a couple live action musical features and a kids and family show.

So I'm a lot on the writing side in terms of Emerson as the director. I do have an idea for my next two shorts that I would love to make.

One is maybe a bit more adult in theme, kind of exploring estrangement from one's body as they discover their sexual identity. And I really see that as a stop motion short. I would love to work in stop motion and I would love to find a team and the resources and the time that lets a project like that come to fruition. So I think that's the next quiet, burning passion project that I have my eye on that I would love to be able to constellate and, and make happen.

And I'm working on one other animated short film right now with a team of friends who hopefully are going to be able to meet me in Manchester. That is a lot shorter than Vibrantea. It's only about four minutes, but it has an environmental message that I think is really important right now at this time in our global society about community action when it comes to protecting our planet and our environment. And so we're, we're thinking about some new ways to maybe take that animated short and expand it into maybe a gallery setting into some larger platforms that help foster greater community engagement around watching film.

So those are two things that as a director I'm excited about.

With your film releasing to film festivals, and even coming to the United Kingdom this year, what are you most excited about?

You know, I'm looking forward to expanding the community of filmmakers who, I know, I feel being very connected to the scene here in Los Angeles and a bit in the United States. But I've always really admired the sensibilities of European filmmakers. Filmmakers in the UK, filmmakers in France. And I'm excited to be part of a larger global community in that sense and see what connections grow out of that and how that potentially informs future projects.

Where can audiences catch Vibrantea?

Well, they can catch Vibrantea. Its world premiere will be at the Manchester Film Festival on March 22nd at what we would say in the United States, we would say 1:00pm but I guess you'd say 13:00 and then we are going.

Our next premiere is in Los Angeles, California at Credo 23, Justine Bateman's film festival. And we are still awaiting hopefully future invitations to the other film festivals that we've submitted to.

And you can always follow our Instagram ‘vibranteashortfilm’ to get more updates.

Thanks for coming on and finally how can people stay in touch with you?

IamEmersonTenney. Pretty straightforward. That's my Instagram handle.

And yeah, it's funny sometimes being a writer, you don't always have a ton of updates until suddenly three or four years later into a project you do. But I try to do anything exciting, I try to share there.

What a unique window into Emerson Tenney’s creative process and the passion behind Vibrantea! It was a pleasure for myself to watch Vibrantea ahead of the Manchester Film Festival screening and to hear her be so open in sharing her journey with animation filmmaking, we get a glimpse of Emerson’s artistic evolution—from early days in education and poetry to embracing the challenges of animation and filmmaking.

Stay connected for more insights and updates from Emerson by following them on Instagram, and be sure to catch Vibrantea at its upcoming premieres.

Manchester Film Festival - Animation Shorts with Vibrantea

Vibrantea Instagram

Emerson Tenney Instagram