Experiencing Interruptions?

Unreachable

This searching, nostalgic short meditates on feelings of loneliness and isolation that at times seem prevalent in our modern technology-fueled culture. Using a visually multilayered blend of video textures and AI- and Photoshop-generated backgrounds combined with painstakingly hand-drawn, frame-by-frame animation, it seeks to explore what it means to be connected, and the contradictory emotions around the idea of being “unreachable.”

  • Jared Hedges
    Director
  • Jared Hedges
    Writer
  • Project Type:
    Animation
  • Runtime:
    5 minutes 3 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    November 19, 2024
  • Production Budget:
    350 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Jared Hedges

Jared has worked for 20+ years in tv and digital media. He began his career writing English dubs for anime localizations, and has worked on dozens of titles including Dragon Ball Z, Fullmetal Alchemist, Yu Yu Hakusho, and the Adult Swim college-humor reimagining of Shin Chan. He has since turned to animations of his own, and has created shorts for Sesame Street, Gortimer Gibbon's Life on Normal Street, Amazon's Streaming IRL, and Court TV's Accomplice to Murder. He has created digital content for brands including LEGO, McDonald's, Google, Microsoft, Nickelodeon, Brisk Iced Tea, and Howler Brothers, and animated content for a permanent exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. His pilot Kid Engine, which he co-created with animator Brandon Ray, was a finalist for Project Greenlight Digital.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

I created Unreachable to reflect on the epidemic of loneliness and isolation that I've seen in the American culture around me, and also experienced myself as a middle-aged man. While modern technology, with its endless personal devices and various social media platforms, promises to bring connection, I often feel it doing the opposite, leaving us increasingly siloed and removed from actual human contact and intimacy. But at the same time I blame my own shortcomings. Why do I not keep in touch with family and friends, even though I know it improves my life? Is there something wrong with me? Are there aspects to our culture and how men are raised that contribute to this problem? Or am I just making excuses? Unreachable is a brief exploration of these ideas, a page from an animated diary, which I hope others will find relatable.

And on the technical/aesthetic side, I wanted to experiment with a visual style that melds two extremes: AI-generated art and hand drawn animation. Like many artists, I am deeply conflicted about AI. I've already seen it replacing illustrators and voice actors in my own field. But it also allows an independent creator like myself to produce things I never would've had the time or budget to do before. Unreachable combines AI -- the least labor-intensive medium possible, with frame-by-frame animation -- one of the most labor-intensive, as I explore what new styles are possible and how to use AI as a tool to tell my own personal stories. I hope this juxtaposition creates its own little layer of commentary that runs parallel to the theme of modern loneliness, another set of contradictions about our digital world.