• WRITTEN, ANIMATED & DIRECTED BY:

      Austin Kimmell​

• PRODUCED AT:

     Massachusetts College of Art &                   Design

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• AWARDS​​​​​

  • New York Animation Film Awards

    • Semi-Finalist (Student Films)​                            New York City, NY

  • jellyFEST - Season 6

    • Semi-Finalist (Animated Shorts)                              Los Angeles, CA

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• SCREENINGS​

  • Boston International Film Festival

    • Official Selection                                    Boston, MA​​​

  • Boston Student Film Festival

    • Official Selection  (Animated Films)     Boston, MA​​​

  • Squealing Pegs

    • Official Selection (MassArt Film Festival)​Boston, MA

Trapper Keeper came about from two sources - 1) a student exercise on the use of transitions, and 2) as a gift to my mother on Mother's Day. It was crafted under a class from Bryan Papciak, which dealt with more experimental forms of animation. While I consider myself first and foremost a narrative filmmaker, combining experimental techniques and moments can enhance the themes I'm working with and can lend a uniqueness to what I'm doing.

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A lot of people ask if the film is autobiographical. To that, I'd answer kind of. I was a fairly decent student in school, and while I had days like the one in the film, everyone has and they weren't the status quo. Roger Ebert called cinema "...the best vehicle for empathy...", and it's able to translate my feelings on a given topic through experiences that don't 100% meet eye to eye. 

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Personally, I enjoy making films that can capture those that I love most. Cinema is able to keep those people for a little bit of time, and animation has the ability to reach beyond reality to tap into what makes us human. I hope that my work can tap into both those mentalities fairly well. Trapper Keeper represents my first real push into that territory, as well as the first appearance of themes that'd resurface in Rite of Passage and Put a Stick in It.