What is the film about?

This is an LGBT romantic-comedy animation short. What if your tribe within the gay community defined you. What if you lived with a real bear?

What influenced it?

The idea behind the film is based on my own relationship. Being hairy chested, and my nickname being bear, I wondered what it would be like if the tribes that people placed themselves in in the gay community actually were real. My partner would be described as a jock, and so putting the two together made Bearable.

A little background information...

I had worked on Sylvain Chomets next animated feature for 6 months as a script doctor and had the fortune to be taught animation from him (his English wasn’t great so he decided to teach me what he meant by design though drawing). After that project I realised I wanted to stay in the medium and whilst living in Portsmouth for work commitments I met and befriended a young 2D animator studying at UOP who was obsessed with 2D, but was being taught 3D. We decided to make a short film as a test to see what we could do on nothing and after 6 months we finished the film.

Originally we were going to release the film online straight away, but we opted to send it to film festivals and luckily got over 20 official selections, including The IRIS Prize, and various screenings.

How was the film made?

We used a Wacom, digital 2D through photoshop primarily, and filmed the three main actors delivering their dialogue and movements for the animator to study and draw.

Sound design and composition was completed by professionals who are close friends.