Jillian Dempsey is a second-year 2D animation student shares her recent animation project and the decision behind choosing animation as a career choice.
“My name is Jillian Dempsey, but I like people to call me Jeech. I am a 2D animation major at SCAD Atlanta and an incoming sophomore. I am from Naples, FL, a southwest coastal town where a lot of old people go to retire. I made art my whole life, to the point where I would get in trouble for drawing on my assignments in elementary school. I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I went to SCAD except that I wanted what was in my head to be visible to those around me. I decided to do animation because that was the thing that I felt I could express myself the most in.
To me, animation is taking the steps and patience to accurately depict my ideas, which is an exciting product to see after the many hours of arranging and drawing frames. The idea of characters created in my head to be visible characters to others is something I find very exciting. Creating environments, feelings, characters, and movements. For my project, Sandwich Story is my first attempt at an actual animation. ‘Lunch Time’ is a 2D mixed with Claymation project that I attempted to do for my first animation class.
The idea of using these two mediums/ forms of animation was something I wanted to tackle in my first animation to see if animation was truly what I wanted to do. This animation is a story told by an alternate version of myself to a random man about a true story that happened. Before even starting my first animation, all I knew was the medium I wanted to use. I then wanted to tell a story that I thought would represent my humor in the best way possible. That story ended up being a story about how my dog ate my parakeets which caused him to poop everywhere which then caused my dad to slip in it. It is a pretty crazy story to hear, so I thought: ‘Why not animate it?’ This process was very long, including teaching myself how to make clay puppet, which I’d never made before. I also had no practice doing any claymation or any stop motion at all. With the base knowledge of not using or knowing how to use any of the mediums I was about to attempt to use, I did what I thought made sense and it turned out exactly how I envisioned it to.
After creating this animation, it made me realize that I do in fact very much do enjoy animating. The feeling of being able to watch the hours of work play in a one-minute masterpiece is something that is super accomplishing and satisfying. Creating this animation also opened up many new doors for animation ideas in my head, which is why I know I want to do animation because each time I finish one I am inspired and fueled to make another one. For my future, I want to make a cartoon and I want to make people laugh and question my work to the point of uncertainty. I want to make things for myself that I can share with.”
To watch Dempsey’s animation project, visit her Instagram: @jeech_jeech.
