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Written by: Phoebe Jiang, 2D Line Producer  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.  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!  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.
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Building 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.
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!  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.
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.  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.  Art by Laura Swalley Initial Development Development on our 2D FOREST (working title) short began during Asians in Animation’s 2025 Development Lab, led by Executive Program Producer Saira Umar and Program Producer Alice Jiang. Over the course of 3 months, the 2D short cohort developed a concept and production-ready pitch package. How it Started In October 2025, Director Ashley Lam and Writer Sheena Santamaria leaned into “hopecore” and presented a number of ideas that highlight positivity and wonder. What emerged was “FOREST” an optimistic story of rediscovering one’s roots and the importance of friendship and community.  Art by Laura Swalley About the Short Film - Logline After failing to attract tourists to visit his forest village, a feisty (and slightly impulsive) acorn rallies his community to showcase all the charm of their hometown. Inspired by the shifting landscapes of LA’s Little Tokyo, Chinatown, Historic Filipinotown and a small town in rural Japan, Ashley and Sheena sought to craft a story about “the little guy.” The story unfolds in a world where grand adventures take place, just from the perspective of some of its smallest inhabitants. ”FOREST” strives to convey the age-old adage of “teamwork makes the dream work,” and that there is beauty and magic in the everyday and in the everyperson. The creative team behind FOREST firmly believes the world and people are good, and hope that audiences can see the good parts of themselves in our characters.
Art After drawing additional inspiration from our exceptional visual development artists (Vanessa Nakasone, Laura Swalley, Ivory Bi, and Michelle Wirono), we crafted a little world amongst the trees that our protagonist comes to appreciate more and more. The 51-page pitch deck captures not only our characters, locations, and cleverly-crafted props, but also beat boards and moment paintings. Building the Crew We were utterly floored by the over 200+ applications we received to be part of our crew. The caliber of our candidates speaks to the tremendous potential of people in the indie animation space who are passionate about collaborating and creating animated stories together. As an apprenticeship program, we prioritized applicants who were not only eager to learn, but also experts in their own right. Many of our applicants resonated with our short’s themes of growing up in immigrant families or communities, and rediscovering their roots. Like our forest friends, we look forward to building together.  Art by Vanessa Nakasone Updates
We’re still in the very exciting pre-design stage, where our visual development artists have stepped into leadership roles as art leads. They are continuing to flesh out our magical, little world of acorns, mushrooms, and bugs with a growing team of artists. Also, our storyboard artists are officially launched and beginning to bring these characters to life. Finally, a talented production team provides the organizational backbone upon which the creative team can build this world. We’ve been heartened by the team’s tremendous creativity and enthusiasm! We’re excited to bring you along on this journey and hope you come to love our little acorn’s world as much as we do.  Can you believe it? If you want proof that time really flies, here's a shocker – we've reached our very last monthly TEA update! Much like the finale of every crew project, this month has been all about taking a deep breath, wrapping things up, celebrating with a well-deserved screening party, and handling those final cleanups. Let's dive into how we've spent our last month together! Crew Screening This was THE moment everyone had been looking forward to since day one! More than 70 excited crew & cast gathered virtually and in person for the celebration. Take a look at our lovely photos where we united for tears, laughter, and watching together what we've been pouring our hearts into for months! Thank you Titmouse Burbank for hosting us!   Announcing... Okay, now we have a confession to make... we've been deliberately holding back while sharing our artwork during these past few months. Why? For our official announcement! Introducing to you the title of our show and the characters of the world of… Tea Leaves Last!  Introducing... Meet the characters we’ve been crafting and living with—and how we express our love towards them every chance we get: (Mild Spoilers Ahead...) And the best part of lovable characters… crew fan art!
Yeah… we occasionally (constantly) have fun with them as well! Within the past 8 months, our crew of 107 members have worked a total of 15,141+ hours! This equals almost 2 years of straight working, if one person were working endlessly 24 hours a day!! Throughout this time, we’ve created 338 assets (characters, backgrounds, props and effects) across 1401 different versions, and 4334 storyboard panels that made it to the final cut! We’ve gained other treasures: invaluable experience in animation pre-production that you simply can't get from textbooks or tutorials alone. The intensive, collaborative environment we created truly mimicked a real animation studio, complete with deadlines, feedback sessions, and the creative problem-solving that happens when talented minds come together! We did it - and we’re so proud of that!! What's next? While most of the crew will be moving on to new adventures, many of them will stay for roughly another month to finish the final touches of marketing materials, sound and music and help with remaining wrap-ups! What’s more, we’re beyond thrilled to share that we have an online release of the final work scheduled on May 21st! We’ll be taking what we’ve worked so hard behind the scenes to the public - we hope that’s as exciting for you as it is for us!! Final Thoughts Our program belongs to Asians in Animation (AIA), a community-powered non-profit organization dedicated to the celebr-Asian and support of the Asian animation community. We develop programs and organize events that are all about giving up-and-coming Asian animation professionals real-world experience to help them build the skills they need to succeed in the industry. If you want to receive the latest updates, make sure to follow our instagram! Lastly, we’d like to thank YOU for accompanying us through this unforgettable journey. The animation industry we love has had its ups and downs, but that's exactly why communities like what we’ve cultivated matter more than ever – we're in this together, supporting each other, and creating opportunities even when the path gets rocky. Shows and projects will end, but we wave goodbye with smiles, and carry the memories, lessons, and connection forward… Until we meet again (hopefully soon)! With love and gratitude, AIA 4P Production Program Team  By Po Kei Nicole Wong
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AuthorThe Program & Production Team Archives
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