What is the film about?

“The intimate story of a young man who got in touch with himself over lockdown”

What influenced it?

Robert Crumb, the weird-art Adult Swim collegiate, Newgrounds’ alumni Zach Hadel and pre-bad-guy John K. Any animated work that celebrates that which makes you chuckle and wince in equal measure.

A little background information...

All Jerk, No Work started life in March as a throwaway practice piece to whittle away the extra days and weeks during lockdown, but as time isolated stretched out, so did the project itself. Initially I wanted something to work as a busy stopgap between now and my first animation course this coming January, but over the course of the following 7 months, somehow I managed to tug jokes and gags out of the ether until they serendipitously fell into actual narrative order you see here.

How was the film made?

The greatest fun of the project was trying to fit as many styles cohesively into one thing as I could, so that I might start school with as animation muscles flexed as possible. Preceding this my experience had all been in walk cycles, turnarounds, and very brief and crass 10-30 second nano-toons, so for this cartoon I tried my hand at lip synch, gross up close ups, storyboarding, background design, abstract motion design, effects animation (liquid, gas), and most importantly, working as a team. Knowing how essential the last factor would be in the industry I so want to be a part of, I assembled a crew of people I admire for their respective talents to shape the piece’s audio into something special on its own.

Beyond that, 7 hour days split before and after work every day for roughly 7 months!