A 2:06 short film recalling my first experience at a funeral.
From March to July of 2026, I gave myself the challenge to post a new animated loop on Instagram each day until I reached two thousand followers. It was a fantastic challenge, and a great way to keep animation in my life at a time where much of my income came from other sources, but it was quickly becoming unsustainable and directly limiting my ability to explore longer-form, narrative work. I had attended a funeral for one of my great grandparents on the previous Christmas, and in May, I learned that the other had died. Needless to say, death and funerals were on the mind, and my first memory of a funeral was always one that stuck out in my head.
I started out by recording what I could recall of the funeral late at night. The next day, I hammered out 15 seconds of visuals and sent it out to my frequent collaborator in the hopes that he could use finger-style guitar to add a cozy, nostalgic sensibility to the story. When he sent back the music, I was floored. I knew that this could be really spectacular.
I finished up the rest of the animation and outsourced the captions to Jeffrey Lim, who was able to add an element of dimension and interactivity to the captions that was really spectacular. I’m exceedingly proud of this film and that this experience was able to resonate with others, some of whom shared their own stories of a meaningful funeral in the comments.