EDWARD TULANE CHORAL SUITE (clip)
Premiered December 2021. Runtime: 40 min 24 sec
A Minnesota Opera Production. Music and Concept by Paola Prestini, Libretto by Mark Campbell, Animation and Art Direction by Erin Pollock, Audio Production, Electronic arrangements, and Sound Design by Sxip Shirey. Edward Tulane is a toy rabbit who thinks of himself as quite exceptional. Content in his easy life, his world is upturned when he is separated from his loving family. Based on the best-selling children's book by Kate DiCamillo, Edward Tulane takes us on a miraculous journey, from the depths of the deep blue sea to the streets of Memphis. Perfect for the young and young at heart, this elegantly whimsical Minnesota original shows us a true miracle—that if you open your heart, you can find home.
JARFUL OF BEES (Trailer)
Premiered July 2021. Runtime: 9 min, 30 sec
21c Liederabend Opus Worldwide PRESS RELEASE: "Jarful of Bees is a multimedia, immersive short film by internationally renowned artist/animator Erin Pollock and critically acclaimed painter Natalie Frank, set to a new piece of music by award-winning composer Paola Prestini, text by Pulitzer-winning librettist Royce Vavrek, and sung by Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano Eve Gigliotti. The collaboration between these five artists explores the transformation of memory and the mutability of the familial relationship between a daughter and her father. Pollock weaves together her claymation and Frank's paintings into a dreamlike visual landscape that elucidates the boundary-pushing vocal and electronic score by Prestini and the ethereal voice of Gigliotti, who, alongside Prestini, developed the concept for the work. Jarful of Bees was commissioned by Jill Steinberg and WNET’s ALL ARTS."
SOOT
Premiered February 2020. Runtime: 5 min, 29 sec
Soot is a stop-motion animation made with charcoal, plexiglass, acetate, gesso, and paper. This footage is the only record of approximately 5000 drawings that were inevitably erased or obscured by the ones that follow them in sequence. This evolution took place on the same piece of paper. Only the final frame/iteration of the drawing is preserved on that paper. It can be displayed alongside the animation as a kind of memento mori.
Soot was created during a month-long residency at The Jentel Foundation in Banner Wyoming.
It premiered at The Flint Institute of Arts in early 2020.
LUCKY MUD (Trailer)
Premiered February 2020. Runtime: 14 min, 57 sec
Lucky Mud is an award-winning short film that celebrates vulnerability, imperfection, and the human capacity for transformation. Clay figures battle their fickle egos and struggle to connect. They suffer physical and emotional imperfections but, like humans, they’re in a constant state of transformation. Wielding violence and tenderness, they sculpt one another with each collision of their fragile bodies - blurring the line between destruction and creation. Every move leaves them forever changed. The process can be cruel and absurd but empathy always creeps in to allow for tender moments of connection.
Lucky mud was screened at the 2019 Art Basel Collector’s Lounge and in over 20 international film festivals, winning awards in 12 of them, including: The Svankmajer Award for Best Animation at The Austin Arthouse Film Festival, Best Experimental Short in the Vancouver Independent Film Festival, Best Animated Short in The Esoteric International Film Festival and Best Animation in the NY Cinematography Awards. It was also a finalist for Best Animation and Best Experimental Short in The Madrid Film Awards, Best Experimental Short in The Golden Short Film Festival, Best Experimental and Best Animation Short in the IndieX Film Fest, and received an honorable mention from the New York Movie Awards.
Lucky mud was screened at the 2019 Art Basel Collector’s Lounge and in over 20 international film festivals, winning awards in 12 of them, including: The Svankmajer Award for Best Animation at The Austin Arthouse Film Festival, Best Experimental Short in the Vancouver Independent Film Festival, Best Animated Short in The Esoteric International Film Festival and Best Animation in the NY Cinematography Awards. It was also a finalist for Best Animation and Best Experimental Short in The Madrid Film Awards, Best Experimental Short in The Golden Short Film Festival, Best Experimental and Best Animation Short in the IndieX Film Fest, and received an honorable mention from the New York Movie Awards.
SUI GENERIS (Trailer)
Premiered May 2018. Runtime: 14 min, 58 sec
Before the pandemic, I fell in love daily with people I never spoke to. On long city walks I reveled in the emotional clusterfuck of fragile human egos, ping-ponging and sparking off one another. I paid close attention to awkward first dates, explosive public breakups, and the resigned swiping of solitary commuters. I studied the body language and power dynamics involved in all this coupling. Sui Generis is a stop motion animation built of borrowed moments and depicts flawed people in conflict, often with themselves. It is a celebration of vulnerability and a meditation on the persistent destruction/creation of identity.
Sui Generis was a Finalist for Best Animation Short in the LA Femme Film Festival, and an Official Selection in: the Portland Film Festival, Harlem International Film Festival, and London's Unrestricted View Film Festival.
Sui Generis was a Finalist for Best Animation Short in the LA Femme Film Festival, and an Official Selection in: the Portland Film Festival, Harlem International Film Festival, and London's Unrestricted View Film Festival.