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“Then in the short, the only voice that’s in the short is that of the mom. For us, the ending in the short is different than it is in the book, and it was important for us to kind of make that connection with the mother because she’s a hair vlogger and it was kind of hard to do an entire short with no dialogue when one of the most important elements is basically a woman telling you how to do hair. We were always trying to wrack our brains in how we could kind of do this in pantomime. For us, it just made sense to have that be the only voice that was in the short because it kind of helps you connect that the mom was kind of hiding in plain sight all along as a hair vlogger.”

Cherry said he had heard tales of major animated movie productions requiring between three and five years.

“I can’t say that I knew all the nuances and the details why it took so long, but definitely that part of the process really was probably the most eye-opening: just how detailed you have to be with every single thing,” he said. “What colour is the carpet? What style is the dresser? What type of watch is he wearing? Every single thing, you need a picture reference for it and to be very specific with it, unlike live action, where oftentimes, especially indie, you’re just kind of rushing and figuring it out and kind of using what you have. That was definitely a different part of the process.

“But, also, the thing I learned the most was just how similar it is to live-action. You want to be very specific with the emotions that the characters are providing and giving off, and you also want to make sure that, at the end of the day, it’s like human storytelling and you want to make sure that you’re hitting all those beats like you would in live-action.”