Sep 11, 2023

2024 Academy Award Contender for Best Short: "Ninety-Five Senses," directed by Jared and Jerusha Hess

Welcome to Cartoon Brew's spotlight series highlighting animated short films that have qualified for the 2024 Academy Awards. There are several ways for a film to qualify for an award. In this edition, we will focus on films that have won an Oscar-eligible award at a festival that is eligible for the Academy Awards.

Today's short is "Ninety-five Senses" by Jared and Jerusha Hess, the production team behind "Napoleon Dynamite" and "Nacho Libre." The film qualified for the 2023 Florida Film Fest by winning the Grand Jury Prize for Best Animated Short.

Unlike most of the Hesses' beloved catalog, "Ninety-five Senses" offers some humor, but little humor, and a deep look at life and how it is perceived through the reflections of a longtime death row inmate who has just finished his last meal. The film is divided into parts, each dedicated to the senses and animated by a different artist, creating a consistently engaging visual experience.

Cartoon Brew: Each sensory part is animated by different people. Jared and Jerusha Hess (Hess): Yes, "Ninety-Five Senses" is composed of six parts, each handled by a different animator and animation team.

The end result is a wonderful group of diverse and multicultural artists working on three different continents. One animator from Brazil, a group from Mexico, one from England, and a handful of artists from our region. All were phenomenally talented.

Believe it or not, it all started with a contest. There is an organization in Salt Lake called MAST, which is a non-profit organization that supports up-and-coming artists. They held a contest called "Voices Seen" and received entries from all over the world. The winners were selected to collaborate on a piece of artwork. Some of these artists are just beginning their professional careers, while others have already had their work shown in Annecy, Tribeca, Cannes, etc.

What is it about this story or concept that grabbed you and compelled you to direct this film -

It is almost impossible to get into the story without spoilers. So spoiler alert.

The film was inspired by footage of death row inmates awaiting lethal injection at the Huntsville Unit in Texas. It is the busiest execution chamber in the United States. Chris Bowman and Havel Palmer, writers we have known and worked with for years, were researching "exit interviews" with death row inmates. They imagined prisoners reflecting on their lives through each of their five senses.

When I read what they came up with, I knew it was something special. Funny, sad, and clever. A reference to Chekhov and Ambrose Bierce. A few weeks ago, their short screenplay was nominated for a Humanitas Award. It is the only animated project selected in the short film category this year and, to our knowledge, the first non-Disney/Pixar animated short to win.

What did you learn about the production side, the filmmaking side, the creative side, or the subject matter through the experience of making this film? That one brought everything to a halt for a while. It probably had less of an impact on us than other productions, because we were always going to be a long-distance effort. Producer Miles Romney deserves a lot of credit for keeping it going and coordinating everyone's work.

This is also our first true drama. The tone is quite different from "Napoleon Dynamite" and our other productions. So the biggest surprise is the range of reactions. Some audiences are in tears. Some were enthusiastic about the film's "shocking turn of events." At one screening, a woman said to me, "This is really a film about disability." And when we appeared in Holly Short, they put us in the comedy category: ...... Apparently our comedic spirit managed to stick through.

Can you tell us how you developed your visual approach to the film and why you settled on the particular style and techniques used in the film? I left the prison monologue to Daniel Brunson. Nica Harrison's work was whimsical and she and Scott McHenry had a lot of fun with the "Sight" segment. I chose Michael Glover for "Hearing" because his work is so vivid and this segment had to convey a lot of the actual plot. Since "Sense of Smell" is the most nostalgic sense, the cozy style of Darrin Penman and Jared Matthews was an ideal match; KC Tobey's "Taste" is more cartoonish, a literal palate cleanser between the heavier chapters; and the "Sense of Lustre" segment was a bit more of a "taste" segment, as it was more of a "taste" segment. Finally, Gabriela Badillo's team was a perfect match for the dreamy lyricism of "Touch." Again, what is thrilling for us is to see all these diverse styles come together around a story (aided, of course, by Tim Blake Nelson's incredible behind-the-scenes tone). Ninety-Five Senses was a true collaboration."