’DAYTRIP‘ selected for multiple festivals

October 4, 2024

Follow Fuzz on his journey to climb Mount Magoo all by himself, as he realizes along the way that maybe the summit is not the goal, but the company he keeps while on the journey.

This is the premise of Dakota State senior Beau Headrick’s 2D animation “DAYTRIP,” which was selected for several film festivals, one of them international.

He first began the animation as part of a class project. Inspired by another animator, Felix Colgrave, and his two animation professors, Daniel Welynn and Konrad Lightner, he completed the approximately three-minute short during the last school year.

Headrick shared that both professors are incredibly helpful in dealing with roadblocks, developing ideas, and working with software.

“Both Konrad and Daniel have a professional lens through which they see things, so being able to work on something, show them, and get notes back is really encouraging.”

“Daniel and Konrad, my two professors, were a huge inspiration for me, just because they kept pushing me. When I would run into a roadblock or a challenge, they helped me over it and made me realize that I am able to get through a lot of those tough challenges.”

Headrick mainly used Adobe After Effects, supplementing it with Toon Boom Harmony, an industry-standard animation software. After working on it for the majority of the last academic year, his professors encouraged him to enter the final version in animation festivals.

A website called Film Freeway enabled Headrick to enter multiple contests around the world. He ultimately submitted his work to almost 30 festivals and was selected for six of them.

He found it difficult to describe how he felt after learning he had been accepted to multiple festivals, but Headrick found it cool and reassuring that people enjoyed his work. This has helped him confirm that he’s on the right path.

“It feels like all the hard work that I’ve been putting in, staying late in the animation studio until 4 a.m., is worth it because people are enjoying it,” he said. His goal in animation is to have people smile at least once while watching his work.

It will also be beneficial when applying for jobs after graduation. “Daniel said that it makes you seem more valuable because it shows that you have created something, and you went out of your way to get it shown, and it was good enough to be selected,” Headrick said.

As a senior, he’s looking forward to working on new animation projects. His favorite classes are pre- and post-production animation where spends time creating in the animation studio.

He’s currently working in 3D animation, which he recommends all 2D animators try out.

“The learning curve is not that difficult; they’re very similar,” Headrick explained. “Konrad knows everything about 3D, so if you ever run into an issue, he makes it seamless to troubleshoot.”

“DAYTRIP” was selected for:

• Boundless Film Festival
• Portland Film Festival
• T-Short Animated Film Festival
• First-time Filmmaker Sessions Lift-off Global Network
• Lift-off Global Network Film Festival