ORFEO
An AI Animated / American Sign Language Feature Length Film
Written and Directed by Eric Emma
Sound Design by Andy Stein
Music Composed by Phased Approach
Release TBA
My Role
Self-Produced Project through my Venus Radio Theater banner. I produced, directed, wrote, and edited this project. Recruiting actors, musicians, and other artists to work on it based on strength of project.
STORY
After dying on the battlefield, an army sniper awakens to a dark hellscape crawling with gargantuan insectoids. He’ll shoot, hack, and claw his way to survival, but as he does, he’s forced to reckon with his past as a war criminal and whether he has a life worth returning to on Earth.
The Cast
Tim Liu
Colleen Sproull
Carl Hendrick Louis
Sarah Shah
Amelia Fowler
Mark Martin
CREATOR STATEMENT
I am a child of deaf adults and I also live with bipolar II disorder, which in recent years has been classified as a serious disability. Most stories I see and hear do not feature characters that reflect my life experiences nor the people that I know. Being neurodivergent, at least in my experience, is less about quirky characters like Monk or Rain Man who have near superhero-like power, and more about folks that are oscillating from extreme emotional states which sometimes render them incapable of living happy lives or getting the help they need.
My main character has a life of trauma derived from the neglect of his parents, from the effects of poverty, and then later from the horrors of war. My hope with this story is that folks like myself who love blockbusters and high fantasy can enjoy an adventure that is about how our trauma may lead us to make terrible mistakes, but that doesn’t mean we also can’t be heroes in the end!
Using AI + American Sign Lanuage
Orfeo began as an audio-fiction project, but as we worked on it and recorded it, we realized it was actually an incredibly visual project. And thus an evolution began, which was how to bring visuals to a project without a budget. I have always wanted to capture the emotive power and beauty of American Sign Language and so we decided to invite deaf performers to perform the sound to an AI generated backdrop of imagery. We hope to create a piece that can be enjoyed by all audiences transcending disability.