Past Exhibitions > Senior Moments: Selections from the Senior Seminar

My thesis will be a 10-12 minute short film about a robot who finds and raises a young child as his own. He names the girl ‘Quarantine’ after the pre-programmed code, and she grows up under his care. I’m considering having his interest in her start at as more of a curious experiment, rather than any desire to ‘love’ her. Gradually the two form an inseparable bond that is disrupted when Quarantine is taken by a Collector Robot to be placed in ‘Quarantine’. The robot then faces the reality of losing the child he’s come to care for like a father figure – will he risk everything to get her back? Or will it be too late?

In their world, there has been a war between humans and robots, with robots seeming to be victorious. The remaining humans are slowly captured and subjected to Quarantine, a fate that only the leaders of the robot society know the full details of. While the robots operate on a combination of artificial intelligence and pre-programmed code, they typically abide by this Quarantine rule. Humans threaten their existence, even if they do not all know why.

The film will be shot with stop motion animation combined with elements of 2-D animation in necessary interlude titles or wherever needed. The aesthetics will not change between 2-D and 3-D, so the feel of the film will be the same. It will be a mostly linear plotline done in a ‘vignette’ style showing the gradual growth of the robot’s character as he raises Quarantine. Each scene will show a glimpse into their lives and how they react to each other coupled with the ever-present danger of a Collector Robot. The sets are more abstract in design, using physical materials coupled with green screen to fill in the background.