<![CDATA[Asians in Animation - *Program Updates*]]>Fri, 10 Jul 2026 08:30:43 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[Feature Pre-Production Memo - June 2026]]>Sat, 20 Jun 2026 17:00:00 GMThttps://www.asiansinanimation.org/prod-program-updates/feature-pre-production-memo-june-2026
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Art by Emily Chao
Visual Development
We are thrilled to announce that our art team has completed 30+ total assets for pre-design over the past few weeks, including characters, backgrounds, props, and even maps of our expansive worlds! Our talented art team is led by Art Director Jade Mahal Lew, Character Lead Isa Kim, and Background Lead Juris Tungpalan. Alongside Director Peri Segel and Writer Allen Wu, the art team is working hard to ensure that every piece of art is crafted with a strong sense of intentionality to deepen character, reinforce themes, and further enrich the world of our film. We’ve been so impressed by the creativity and enthusiasm that has come out of this team so far and can’t wait to share more of their beautiful art soon!
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Art by Eri Iguchi
Story
Led by our fearless Head of Story, Al Teng, the story team has officially assembled! To better familiarize themselves with our story, world, and characters, the story artists have cooked up many creative pieces of art over the past few weeks through a series of short exercises. Some of these exercises have even inspired new elements in our film! 
Art by Jenny Yi
What’s Next
We’re so excited to continue on with design and storyboards in the coming weeks and are grateful for the endless support and dedication of our exceptionally hard-working production team. Our production team has not only kept us on track and organized throughout every step of the process, but they have also patiently and efficiently put out every fire that has popped up along the way. Special shoutout to our fearless production team – this project couldn’t happen without them.

More updates on storyboards, casting, and records coming soon!
]]><![CDATA[CG Production Memo - June 2026]]>Thu, 18 Jun 2026 18:00:00 GMThttps://www.asiansinanimation.org/prod-program-updates/cg-production-memo-june-2026
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Art by Dasom Park
We're so excited that we've officially wrapped up our Pre-Production phase!
2D Design
As of the beginning of June, we have completed both of our 2D black and white and color designs! Our 2D artists finished a total of 40 assets including characters, backgrounds, props, and color scripts in 13 weeks.  That averages to 3 asset designs per artist a week!  Our Art Leads, Tiffany Pham and Celena Sam, have also explored so many different color variations to develop and establish the style of our film.
Art by Dasom Park
Story
Under the leadership of our Head of Story, Dasom Park, the Story and Edit teams have officially completed our fully timed and picture-locked animatic! Huge congratulations to Dasom, our incredible story artists Debra Rengga and Chelsea Paige Roasa, story revisionists Annie Jerry and Aishwarya Dhulipala, and our editor, Anna Maria Folsom, for bringing this milestone to life. We are so excited to share some of our more treasured beat boards with you and hope you find them as inspiring as we did.
Art by Dasom Park
What’s Next
With the help of our character, environment, and surfacing/texturing artists, we are excited to begin Production, starting with the Modeling phase.  In addition, we have brought on our Tech, Music, Animation, and Lighting teams to start Research and Development. This brings our crew to a total of 57 people!

Our Research and Development consist of two sections.  As we are building part of this pipeline from scratch, using unique file storage solutions, we are emphasizing the importance of documentation and clear communication to ensure that our process functions properly to support our artists.  Our teams are currently testing the pipes to make sure that file transfers are working properly for our artists. With the help of Production, our Tech team and Directors are working closely with our Discipline Supervisors to make sure the water flows smoothly from the pipes.

Our Asset, Animation, and Lighting team are also researching and ideating on ways to create that painterly style for our film using software like Unreal Engine, Nuke, and Houdini.
]]><![CDATA[2D Production Memo - June 2026]]>Tue, 16 Jun 2026 18:00:00 GMThttps://www.asiansinanimation.org/prod-program-updates/2d-prod-memo-june-2026Written by: Phoebe Jiang, 2D Line Producer
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Art by Ashley Lam and Laura Swalley
Things are glowing up in the world of FOREST and we're thrilled to share some exciting updates.
Pre-Design: Continued and Counting
Our pre-design team (Ivory Bi, Andrew Fratasci, Joanna Jiang, Vanessa Nakasone, Laura Swalley, Michelle Wirono) has been hard at work building out the lush, little world of our 2D animated short. The pre-design phase has been an incredible opportunity for our visual development artists to explore, experiment, and establish the visual language that will carry our acorn protagonist’s story from beginning to end. Every asset, from the tiniest face masks to mushroom-sized gadgets, was thoughtfully crafted. We can’t wait for you to see the nooks and crannies that bring this world to life.
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Art by Joanna Jiang
Beat Boards: Bringing the Story into View
One of the most exciting milestones in the early stages of animation production is the development of beat boards. As a script gets close to being locked, beat boards help the team think visually about what the story actually looks like. 

We’re fortunate to have a trained storyboard artist as our Director, Ashley Lam, who was able to visually convey the big picture and help the team understand the overall pacing and narrative direction. Beat boards serve an important role in mapping out major turning points and establish the emotional “tentpoles” in the story. Compared to standard storyboards that detail every single short, beat boards apply single, detailed images to convey entire scenes. The resulting images are reminiscent of storybook illustration, packing complexity and emphasizing the emotional core of the story. Questions guiding each panel are simple but powerful: Who’s important in this scene? How do we compose the image so that it not only communicates what’s happening, but also how the characters feel about it?

It’s a thoughtful challenge as every choice in framing, focus, and staging is a storytelling decision. And watching those decisions come together into a first visual pass of our film has made the story feel just a little more real.
Art by Ashley Lam
Storyboarding: First Panels, First Steps
Our storyboard team is also officially up and running! Led by Grace Park, our Head of Story, our story artists Alyssa Huang, Aloha Lee, Vivian Le, and Connie Wen, have hit the ground running in these earliest stages of the boarding process. This month, the team made their way through thumbs and rough pitches, which are the scrappy, exploratory first passes where the real magic of visual storytelling comes into view. 

Thumbs and roughs aren’t about perfection; they’re about momentum and discovery. And our story artists’ enthusiasm for the project has propelled us into the next phase of the pipeline. At this stage, the priority is to clearly convey ideas, find the flow of sequences, and begin to answer the big questions: Does this scene land emotionally? Is the staging clear? Pitches gave our director and story team a chance to unpack and explore these questions together, and the conversations that emerged are sharpening the way we see our story. 

It’s early days, but the exuberant creativity of this team has been exciting to watch!
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Art by Andrew Frastaci
What’s Next
The FOREST crew is growing! This month, we welcomed our composers, editor, compositing and animation leads to the team. These new additions bring with them a wealth of expertise that will provide the guidance and structure our team needs as we head into the next phase. In the weeks to come, we’ll be bringing on the remaining artists and creatives, and we can’t wait to introduce them to you.
]]><![CDATA[Feature Pre-Production Memo - May 2026]]>Tue, 12 May 2026 00:30:00 GMThttps://www.asiansinanimation.org/prod-program-updates/feature-pre-prod-memo-may-2026Building on the momentum from previous production programs, Asians in Animation has blasted off with its most ambitious project yet — an epic sci-fi rom-com feature.

Logline
Two soulmates set out from opposite ends of the galaxy, determined to reach each other, even if the journey takes a lifetime.

Initial Development 
Development on the feature began during Asians in Animation’s 2025 Development Lab, spearheaded by Program Executive Producer Saira Umar and Program Producer Alice Jiang. 

Alongside the CG Short, 2D Short and TV cohorts, the Feature cohort developed a feature concept and created a production-ready pitch package from October through December.
How it Started
In October 2025, Director Peri Segel and Writer Allen Wu presented the concept of an interstellar romance that follows two lovers who travel through the vastness of time and space in order to reach each other at the star of love, Orihime. The film is a sweeping, life-spanning story that follows its lead characters from their younger years into old age.

In developing this long-distance romance, Peri drew from her marriage to her high school sweetheart:

“My now-husband and I met in high school, and much of our early relationship was long-distance,” says Peri. “We went to different colleges, began our careers in different cities, and still grew together through it all. Despite the distance, I’ve never felt closer to another person – and I wanted to bring that emotional truth to this story.”
Inspired by poignant romances like Past Lives and Your Name, Peri and Allen also drew from grand space stories like Interstellar to weave an ambitious exploration of love and growing up throughout the cosmos. Through the perspective of its lead characters, Feature 2026 aims to ask whether it’s brave, or naive, to chase after grand, long-shot dreams. Passionate and ambitious creatives themselves, Peri and Allen understand deeply what it means to chase after bold dreams that feel like a long-shot.

ART
The art team quickly dove into the visual development process, exploring and refining designs for the project’s lead characters across ages.
Art by Lucy Feng
In mid-December, the team completed an expansive 62-page pitch deck containing 65 pieces of art, encompassing not only characters, locations, and props, but also beat boards and style frames.

Next Steps
In December, Asians in Animation officially greenlit the project to proceed to the Feature Pre-Production Program stage, aiming to expand the developmental materials into a 20-minute proof-of-concept animatic.

After a short holiday break, the team reassembled for the next leg of feature’s epic voyage. 

In total, this next stage of the program received over 160 applications for the story, design, production, music, casting and edit teams. Over the course of 2 months, we assembled and onboarded a full crew and cast of 60 heading into the pre-production phase.

Stay tuned to hear more about what we’ve been up to!
]]><![CDATA[CG Production Memo - May 2026]]>Sun, 10 May 2026 00:30:00 GMThttps://www.asiansinanimation.org/prod-program-updates/cg-prod-memo-may-2026
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Art by Sirius Zhao
How It Started
Early on, we knew we needed to include at least one pitch based on a story from the Middle East. We worked closely, as co-directors, writer and story artist to put together 4 pitches that were stories of resilience and beauty that reflected our team.

Our writer, Amir, is Yemeni and pitched a story about Yemen which resonated with the entire cohort, and so it became the story that we chose to move forward with.
Logline
Affected by air strikes in Yemen, a young boy turns inward and confronts the psychological turmoil that has redefined his childhood.  Through his inner journey, he begins to rediscover his sense of self in a new light.
Art by Soli Hu
Writers’ Room
How the Script Evolved: In a world where everyone connects through screens, it’s easy to distance ourselves from what is happening and dissociate from the impact of international current events. This story is influenced by an animator; Haneen, working with children in Gaza and finds itself through the themes of self-empowerment and determination.  Through iterations, we find ourselves holding on to pieces of who we were in the past and follow a journey of one’s struggle to find themselves again.  Originally, our story centered on embracing persistence in the face of struggle and while we kept the imagination aspect of the story, you’ll find that determination becomes the focal point.
Art by Kevin Zhou
Building the Crew
Since this is the first time AIA has pursued a CG production, we were blown away to receive 100+ applications to this program. We are working in a 3D style so we needed artists who were strong in out-of-the-box thinking. We leaned on artists who showcased a wide range of skills as well as experience experimenting with FX and objects such as glass and destruction.  We also focused on artists who were comfortable with research and development to help build the tools we need to achieve the final look.
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Art by Kevin Zhou
Updates
We’re excited to be at the last stage of Storyboards and currently onboarding our 3D asset team.  It’s been amazing to see all of the work and collaboration our 2D and storyboard teams have been undertaking in order for our story to take place.  We hope you join us on this journey.
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