El Diablo
dir. Matthew Ellsworth
Academy of Art University, USA
Synopsis:
El Diablo is a stop-motion animated film inspired by the look and feel of Mexican folk art. The film follows the adventure of a drunken skeleton that gets his heart stolen by the devil, and the struggle that ensues to win it back. Over one and a half years in the making, this four minute film is Matt Ellsworth’s graduate thesis project at Academy of Art University in San Francisco.
Director:
Matt Ellsworth has loved stop-motion animation all his life. From watching holiday specials like Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer to later being inspired by The Nightmare Before Christmas, something about this rare and painstaking medium has always caught his eye and inspired his imagination. Matt earned his BA in film at Montana State University in Bozeman Montana in 1996. Although the school had no animation program, he went ahead and made a stop-motion short titled Junk out of found objects and clay characters, and still managed to graduate. Ten years later after many twists and turns, still enthralled with the potential of stop-motion animation, Matt decided on graduate school at Academy of Art University in San Francisco. The film El Diablo is his graduate thesis project and took over a year and a half to complete. The film is inspired by Mexican Day of the Dead folk art and the flavor and feel of San Francisco’s Mission District. After graduating in 2010 Matt moved to Portland, Oregon where he now works at Laika, the stop-motion animation studio that made the film Coraline.