Austin-based writer/director David Shen Miller has released his 2023 film The Cocoon on popular YouTube shorts channel Omeleto (3.7 million subscribers). Featuring over 11,000 frames of hybrid hand-drawn and computer-generated animation, the film marks Shen Miller’s animation directorial debut. You can watch the nine-minute short below.
The filmmaker’s work explores themes of identity, paradox and disillusionment — in The Cocoon, a man awakens trapped in a blank room with nothing but a mop to clean his dirty footprints. But with every step he takes to wipe one away, he leaves another behind.
The non-dialog short utilized Adobe Flash, Blender and Procreate tools to augment the hand-drawn 2D.
The Cocoon was executive produced by Jon Turteltaub (National Treasure, Cool Runnings, The Kid) and Laurence Mark (I, Robot; Jerry Maguire). It was a co-production between Miller’s Corinthian Pictures and Los Angeles-based animation studio Confidential Creative (Maroon 5, Journey, PJ Morton, Carrie Underwood), co-founded by producers Andrew Seth Cohen and Ryan Kieffer.
The film’s creative team also included lead animator Andrés Couturier, line producer Pepe Gomez, storyboard artist Katherine Crossan, composer Dan Light, sound team Grant Cornish and Noah Hunt, character designer Maren Gainey and concept artist Kristina Martin.
The short screened or won awards at festivals including Dallas International Film Festival, Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival (where it won the VSO Award for best music and will have the Vermont Symphony Orchestra play the score live to picture this summer), The Big Apple Film Festival, WorldFest Houston International Film Festival (Finalist), Asian American International Film Festival, ANIMAZE Film Festival and Lake Travis Film Festival.
Since completing The Cocoon, Shen Miller has written and directed the live-action short Paint It Black and Coalescence, which is about to launch its festival run.
