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LOST FAITH is a short, animated movie telling a story of my grandpa, a religious person who deeply believed in Buddha; however, he turned into an atheist at some point and abandoned his faith. I was so curious to find out when he decided to become an atheist and remembered a story that he told me one time when I was a kid. The story is about him having to take shelter in a dark temple and sleeping there for one night, thinking he was safe under Buddha's protection because it was raining hard while he was fleeing from the Khmer Rouge. He woke up the next day just to find out he had been sleeping among ghosts in a raided temple—there was no divinity, no salvation, no hope.
My film was directly inspired by my grandpa's journey to Vietnam. I love listening to my grandpa's past stories because they always intrigue me, even though the majority of them aren't for the faint of heart. Something is fascinating and spooky about my grandpa's narration that always gets me hooked—he's an innate storyteller. I think I picked up a lot from that, and that my grandpa is undoubtedly the first person to influence me to become a storyteller/animator because animation is a form of storytelling using moving images, after all.
I wanted my first black-and-white short film to be a personal story to appreciate my grandpa's journey and pay homage to the Khmer Rouge victims and survivors. In a sense, making LOST FAITH is my way of cherishing my family history. Moreover, since we haven't had a lot of Southeast Asian representation, I might as well do it! I know it might come from my homesickness and desperation, but since I'm one of the very few Vietnamese/Southeast Asians at CalArts—one of the best character animation schools in the US—I feel the urge to put Vietnam/SEA on the animation map.
The production of a short, animated film involves three major stages—pre-production, production, and post-production—each comprising multiple overlapping steps that are rarely linear. During pre-production, I focused on ideating and developing the story through scripting, storyboarding, character and visual design, and sound planning. The most challenging aspect at this stage was finalizing the story and effectively timing it in the animatic to ensure clarity and emotional impact.
In the production phase, I brought the film to life through background painting, animation, compositing, and sound integration. The rough animation phase proved to be the most difficult overall, requiring repeated trial and error to capture believable movement while also demanding careful time and energy management due to the chaotic and deadline-driven nature of this stage.
Finally, post-production involved compiling and polishing the film, syncing audio, and preparing final deliverables for submission—less complex, but still time-consuming. Throughout the process, maintaining a structured yet flexible schedule, managing my energy, and allowing space for rest were essential to completing the film without burnout.