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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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 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. |
AuthorThe Program & Production Team Archives
June 2026
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