PEOPLE PERSON
DIRECTED BY RYMALENA
UNITED STATES // 2020
14 MINS
Desperate to escape her reality, a young woman discovers a program that immerses her in her own subconscious through a myriad of virtual personas.
Reflective Encounters
“Through its cyberpunk vision, People Person takes the concept of planned obsolescence, which forces us to constantly update our smartphones, and takes it to its most extreme endpoint. What immediately sticks out are the types of shots being deployed, which are less typical in animation than they are in live-action. Behind-the-head tracking shots and first-person POV are frequent, foregrounding the protagonist’s subjectivity. This is crucial to the film’s success as a story because there is almost no dialogue, and so by placing such an emphasis on the main character’s perspective, the film is able to develop their personality through visual language.
At times it looks like the film is rotoscoped, an uncanny effect which works tremendously well with the film’s premise of reality-shifting. The idea that the software in cybernetic implants dictates the reality we see means that the film can tease an ill-defined line between live-action and animation. These themes have been touched on before, most notably in Richard Linklater’s rotoscoped adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly. But in People Person that relationship to a live-action reality is threadbare, reflecting the protagonist’s own ever-loosening grip. This gives the film, in spite of its lush use of colour, a palpable horror that stabs at the viewer in its conclusion.”
— Cathy Brennan
Filmmaker Q&A
A Q&A with filmmakers from the Digital-Dystopia programme at Encounters Film Festival 2021.
Filmmakers - Rymalena (People Person), Liesbet van Loon (Monachopsis).
Hosted by Kieran Argo, Animation Programmer
Filmmaker Bio
Fueled by a distinct passion for character and individuality, Rymalena is an artist-turned-director who is committed to bridging the gap between realism and animation. As a self-taught illustrator and animator, they are thoroughly hands-on in every part of the production process, from story boarding and character animation to editing and final compositing.
Director’s Statement
Rymalena began production on People Person in 2019 as a one-person passion project, but as the scope of the project grew, it became clear that a bigger, more robust team was needed if their vision was going to come to fruition. With no budget or investors backing them, Rymalena selectively assembled a small, tight-knit team of artists along the west coast who were not only passionate about the project, but willing to devote their limited free time to its creation—thus their rag-tag production company, Malena Industries, was born.
Because the nature of People Person is largely driven by character and personality, the entire film was shot live action first, and then animated using rotoscoping techniques to ensure that every micro-detail of the actors’ performances were captured. The team built a bespoke production pipeline from the ground up tailored to their style of animation, and after almost two years of late nights and ten-hour Zoom calls, they are incredibly proud of the product they have muscled into existence.