October 18th, Monday night, approximately 8:00 PM. At the School of Visual Arts, the ASIFA-East Annual Open Screening is in full swing. Students and professionals of all levels within the animation field gather to preview works-in-progresses, sample new test reels, scope out new talent, show off the latest creations, and basically see what their fellow animator peers are up to. Twenty-three-year-old Noella Borie and recent Parsons the New School of Design graduate is up next on the queue. Before her six minute animated short plays to a fairly crowded theatre, she briefly introduces herself to the audience.
She is a bit soft spoken, but there is still a resolute sense of pride in her voice—accented with a French lilt—as she presents her senior thesis to a host of professionals and peers. The theater darkens. Before the crowd, the big screen comes alive with the image of a stop motion curtain sliding open, presenting, in sharp and shaking letters, the opening titles: “Faceless Neil in THE FACE SHOP.” The six minute short follows a shy and, apparently, faceless boy and his endearing monster buddy, Manny, on their quest to find the boy’s face. It is darkly humorous and visually engaging, using an interesting and eclectic mix of stop motion and flash animation with vibrant watercolor textures—a striking contrast to the trendy CG modeled animation features fed to mainstream audiences of today. While part of The Face Shop is, indeed, digitally made, Borie’s film, with her bold watercolor backdrops and lovingly crafted stop motion puppets, still feels handmade, personal, and maintains the feeling of the human touch.
The crowd laughs at all the right moments. Borie is met with appreciative and enthusiastic applause by the short film’s conclusion. Still, she is not yet done treating the audience with her cheerfully dark brand of humor; Borie gets one more laugh out of the viewers as she credits herself at the close as “Jobless Noella.”
October 19th, Tuesday afternoon, approximately 4:30 PM. In the Parsons
building at 2 West 13th Street, Noella Borie sits in the lobby prepared, taking out a stylishly printed book brimming with whimsical character designs, concept art, and storyboards brilliantly rendered in rich watercolor—all for the world of Faceless Neil. Borie herself looks quite stylish as well. No doubt she would be easy to spot in a crowd, standing out, tall and slender, with her mane of vividly red hair. Today she is sporting a trim black coat with tights and a pair of butterfly-esque glasses frames that suggest a quirky but cool personality underneath. Noella is calm and composed, answering any question that is thrown at her in her soft and pleasant voice, accented in French. She has always been interested in cartoons. From Disney movies in her childhood (her favorites being Dumbo and The Lion King) to Japanese anime in her teenaged years (a fan of works like Escaflowne and Neon Genesis Evangelion), Noella has been a fan of animation for as long as she can remember.
“I love watching cartoons. Ever since I moved out of the dorms and got my own place with cable, all I do is switch between Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon,” she says, smiling and miming pressing the buttons of a remote control, “I know that it’s a bit strange for someone my age, but I also watch them with a professional eye and mindset, seeing what kind of things people are doing.”
As a child, she would always wonder how movies were actually animated. She would think to herself, “How did they do that?!” but it wasn’t until she came to Parsons that “all the secrets were revealed.” It was at Parsons that Noella would grow as an animator. The idea for Faceless Neil originated from an early assignment for her Illustration Concepts class. Provided with a four sentence prompt, Noella came up with what ultimately became the first piece of concept art for Faceless Neil—a meek little boy sitting on bed, surrounded by skeletal creatures.
When she finished the piece she thought to herself, “Hey this would make a cool animation!” and so she set off to work, developing an entire world and story set in the city of Morteville where it’s Halloween practically everyday, where skeleton bands can bust out jazzy, toe-tapping tunes for a crowd of cheerfully ghoulish creatures, and where no one bats an eye at anyone who has eight eyes. Eventually, with the inspiration of her original concept art and the songs of songwriter Andrew Bird, everything she created came together into a forty-eight page script in which the saga of eleven-year-old Neil and his quest to his face is fully planned out. Noella values story above everything else, so it was important for her to plan out Neil’s entire tale. “If you have a great story, you can get away with anything,” she reasons.
Right now, Noella has two scenes animated from her script, including her senior thesis The Face Shop. According to Nate Ziller, a friend, fellow animator, and the voice of Manny in her animation, Noella is very passionate about her work.
“Listening to her talk about it just made me want to see the finished version more since she was so enthusiastic about it,” he remembers fondly. “She was very determined to get the movie done.”
The conversation with Noella takes a slightly gloomier turn as the subject moves to the state of animation right now and the difficulty for a young animator to break into the industry. Ideally, Noella would love to pitch Neil to Cartoon Network, but it is not exactly easy to get in. She interned for a brief stint at World Leader Entertainment, the studio responsible for Adult Swim’s Venture Brothers, but she left, disappointed at the lack of work she was given. “I was really excited for it too. I thought, ‘this is going to be so cool!’ but I would just be sitting there doing nothing. I had to get out.” With the upwards trend of American studios outsourcing the actual job of animating to Korea, young animators are now competing with the cheaper service of overseas companies.
“You can’t really sell yourself as an animator—you have to sell yourself as a storyboard artist or character designer,” says Noella.
Currently the animation industry is quickly shifting from 2d hand drawn animation to a primarily 3d modeled vibe, but Noella still stands by the handmade quality of traditional animation, calling the look of CG films “plastic-y.” While she has tried CG modeling herself before she realized it just wasn’t for her and much preferred the feel of a pencil in her hand and favors staying as far away as possible from digital work when it comes to illustration.
Still, while she calls herself “jobless,” Noella is not standing idly by doing nothing as she waits for opportunity. She is always creating art in her spare time, working not only on a Faceless Neil children’s book but also developing designs for a sci-fi comic and assisting independent animator Signe Baumane on her film Rocks in my Pockets, a funny film about depression. She is also planning on taking a trip to California this winter to scope out the booming animation scene in Hollywood.
Right now, however, Noella is most excited to be selected as a participant in the 7th Annual Big Apple Film Festival this November, where The Face Shop will meet its largest audience yet. Festivals and screenings may very well be the livelihood for a new animator, offering exposure and allowing for networking with fellow peers talented enough to make the cut for the final screening. Noella has been submitting to several festivals, hoping to reach out to larger audiences where with a bit of luck, someone will take the “Jobless Noella” credit at the end as a hint to hire her. From this kind of exposure, Noella hopes to gain connections and come closer to achieving her dream of seeing Neil as a cartoon series. Noella remains optimistic, eyes lighting up as she proudly mentions that she’s made it through the last few rounds of cuts for a couple of festivals already. Despite everything, Noella’s passion and love for the art keeps her animating and creating, unhindered by any difficulties that come her way.
"I think you can always improve. You just have to keep drawing."
October 18th, Monday night, approximately 8:06 PM. Noella Borie’s The Face Shop concludes its screening at the ASIFA-East Open Screening at SVA. When the applause dies down, ASIFA-East president David Levy jokingly asks Noella, “When you get a job, will you change your credit at the end?”
With a coy smile, Noella responds, “No, I’ll just…probably still pretend to be jobless.”
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All artwork credited to Noella Borie. For more on Noella Borie and her creepy cartoon creation Faceless Neil, find her at www.nobiechan.com or facelessneil.wordpress.com.
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