Behind the Scenes of Sander Joon’s Rally-themed Short Film ‘Sierra’
Father and his son are losing the folkrace. In order to win, a boy turns himself into a car tire. You can watch the making of video to get the first glimpse of the electric short animation by Sander Joon, which will be released in 2022.
To me, 3D animation is almost like directing a puppet film. Compared to the puppet film, you just spend most of your time working alone. First, you need to model a character and make sure all the details are in place as even a slight error can create a complete mess. In that sense, 2D animation gives more playroom. But I think 3D resonates well with the rally aesthetics, especially with the 70s and 80s where I have drawn most of my inspiration from.
Sander Joon, the screenwriter and director of Sierra
Besides 3D animation, Sierra includes fragments of an old 16mm rally-themed puppet film director’s father animated 40 years ago on his bathroom floor. This accidentally found animation fragment was one of the initial triggers of the story of Sierra which puts a surreal spin on the absurdities of rally world.
Although Sierra is a personal story and very much affected by the director’s childhood we wanted to give the kid an androgynous look. As in its core, Sierra tells a very universal story about the pressures our parents or caretakers sometimes unintentionally put on us.
Aurelia Aasa, Producer
Sander Joon has previously directed three films: Velodrool (2015), Moulinet (2017), and Sounds Good (2018), which travelled to festivals such as Annecy, DOK Leipzig, Ottawa, Go Short, Stuttgart, Fredrikstad, Kaboom, Supertoon, Animateka and GLAS. Besides films, he has animated a music video for Tommy Cash, participated in a popular commercial for Rick and Morty and has been a VJ to numerous events. Sander also worked as a 2D artist for the multi-awarded film The Old Man Movie (2019).
The producers of Sierra are Aurelia Aasa (AAA Creative) and Erik Heinsalu (BOP!). Erik Heinsalu is one of the producers of critically acclaimed full-length puppet The Old Man Movie (2019), which received over 85 000 cinema admissions back in Estonia making it one of the most successful domestic animated films of all times.
Sierra’s composer is internationally acclaimed Misha Panfilov, sound designer is an award-winning Matis Rei. Animators are Henri Kaido Veermäe, Valya Paneva, Teresa Baroet, Sander Joon. The project went into production in the beginning of 2021 and will be out in 2022.
The film’s development and production are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and the Estonian Film Institute.