#HairLove thread time.
I remember back 4 years ago when I put out this tweet looking for 3D artists for what I thought was an Oscar Worthy animated short film script I had recently completed. I had come across this image from this 3D artist named Julian Santiago.
I remember back 4 years ago when I put out this tweet looking for 3D artists for what I thought was an Oscar Worthy animated short film script I had recently completed. I had come across this image from this 3D artist named Julian Santiago.
I had never seen black and brown characters in the medium of CG that had looked like this before & the initial idea for a story about a black dad doing their daughters hair for the first time hit me like a light bulb.
Here’s a link to Julian’s work: artstation.com/juliansantiago
Here’s a link to Julian’s work: artstation.com/juliansantiago
This was back in the spring 2016 before Moana, Coco, Spiderverse & this current wave of inclusive CG animated projects hit. Of course there was Bebe’s Kids, Princess & The Frog, Book Of Life & Home that came before but this felt like a chance to create something just as special.
I remember telling my manager @monicaayoung back in March 2016 after watching the Oscars that year and paying special attention to all the categories that I have an animated idea that if we do it right that we could probably win one too & she never looked at me like I was crazy. 
She believed and we started trying to figure out the best way how to do it. I did an initial reach out online, which you see in the first tweet in the thread, & got a few bites but none that felt legit enough to do this at the level I wanted to do it at so I moved on.
I even reached out to Julian who created the image in this post but he told me that he was too busy to work on it but wished me luck.
After I let the initial script I wrote for Hair Love fade away, in comes the summer of 2017 which brought several viral videos of dads doing their daughters hair on my timeline & the sense of urgency that I didn’t have before became more apparent.
I learned of @vashtiharrison’s work through a drawing she did of @nijla1 & she agreed to do some art for our crowdfunding campaign. We launched in summer 2017 with @peter_a_ramsey & @frankabney as EP’s, myself as a writer, director, producer & Monica Young as a producer.
Peter Ramsey was also great because at some point in this process I reached out to him and shared the script with him and asked what he thought and he was very encouraging and reminded me that Animation is a medium and not a genre.
.@karenrtoliver learned about the project through a relationship she had with my manager during the kickstarter and the rest was history. We raised the most money for a short film in Kickstarter history and got a book deal with @KokilaBooks.
Karen then brought on the rest of the team like directors @Mr_Scribbles & @BruceAlmighteee and producer @Stacey_Newton along with production facility @SixPointHarness & along with @lionforge & @SonyAnimation and the rest of the crew that worked on the film.
I had never worked in animation before and Karen really surrounded us with a great team of people who were experts in their field who helped to execute the vision and added to it in many ways that you see in the final film. Beyond thankful to everyone who worked on it.
I guess the main lesson is that inspiration can come from anywhere & you have to be prepared to follow through when it does. Keep creating.
A week ago today. #HairLove
