As part of a Pixar SparkShorts press junket, Popped spoke with Aphton Corbin, director of Twenty Something, about making her directorial debut, creating the short remotely during the pandemic and the animation influences behind the film.
“The SparkShorts program is designed to discover new storytellers, explore new storytelling techniques, and experiment with new production workflows. These films are unlike anything we’ve ever done at Pixar, providing an opportunity to unlock the potential of individual artists and their inventive filmmaking approaches on a smaller scale than our normal fare.”
Jim Morris – President, Pixar Animation Studios
Disney+ has been home to multiple films belonging to the SparkShorts program now, and the titles include:
Purl (2019), Smash and Grab (2019), Kitbull (2019) , Float (2019) , Wind (2019)
Loop (2020) , Out (2020) , Burrow (2020)
About ‘Twenty Something’ Director Aphton Corbin
Aphton Corbin started her career at Pixar back in 2016 where she worked as a story artist on Toy Story 4. Aphton recently also took part in the production of the Disney+ Original Soul, where she was a story artist, too. As a story artist, Corbin is responsible for helping the director visualise the film in the form of storyboards and also provides the first representation of the film to determine if elements such as the story are working well.
Aphton’s next project at Pixar, is of course – Twenty Something:
Adulting can be hard. Some days you’re nailing it, while other days, you’re just a stack of kids hiding in a trench coat hoping no one notices. Gia finds herself in this exact scenario the night of her 21st birthday. This is a story about the insecurities of adulting and how we’re all just faking it till we make it.
Interview With ‘Twenty Something’ Director Aphton Corbin
First question I had was, obviously what was your experience as a first-time director getting to work with the team? Did you enjoy it?
AC – Yeah! Well, it was really fun working with a team. At first, I was very nervous, you know. This is the first time I’ve directed. Pixar has a very large name and legacy behind it. So all of the fear of like – Oh, my gosh, what… what story am I going to tell? Am I going to make it good? And getting with these teammates that are largely talented and have worked on all sorts of different things, how was I going to lead them?
But they were all great people, great teammates. And at the end of the day, they really want to help you do your vision the best way you can. And so even in the pandemic, I think we just bonded together as a team and found ways to encourage each other and make a really fun film. They were a great team for a first time director to work with.
Obviously speaking about the pandemic. Were there any difficulties that you easily overcame, obviously working remotely from home?
AC – Well, all of the challenges, let me think… (easily overcame.) I don’t know about easily overcame, but I think one miracle that came from it is everyone’s working on different computers, different monitors, all sorts of different settings, which affects the colour when we’re working with backgrounds and paint and colour.
We’re all trying to colour match, and we can’t be certain that that’s going well. So somehow, like a miracle. We went into the studio one time, all masked up, to check and see how it was going, and everything was perfect. I don’t know how we did it, but everything came out magically, just like a knock from wood divine intervention, kind of a thing where we were all able to pull that off in a miraculous way.
Have there, obviously with your experience as a filmmaker, has there been any animated films that have really inspired you along the way? Any that you took inspiration from for Twenty Something, or is it all from your own sort of situation, I guess?
AC – I’m inspired by a lot of stuff. I think for the style of Twenty Something, I’m really inspired by older classic EPA cartoons that they used to do for advertisement, how simple and graphic that was. And then I’m also really inspired by anime, especially simplistic anime for like kids there is like ‘Crayon Shin-chan’ and like, so I think it runs the gambit.
Then there is like, well an American show but animated mostly in the UK – ‘The Amazing World Of Gumball’. So I think I took so many different things from different genres and styles that I liked and tried to make my own style for Twenty Something and then play off of all that great knowledge I’ve learned from Pixar and how to tell compelling, truthful stories.
Another question, the last one, how much of a benefit would you say is for a filmmaker like yourself to have a platform like Disney+ to share all these wonderful and extra stories on top of, obviously, the theatrical films?
AC – Yeah, I think it’s so great because it gives these shorts another life, and Pixar was started off as a short program, and so I did really believe in it. And so it’s exciting to have something like the Sparkshorts which allows multiple people with a bunch of different voices to make shorts that can be loved and be inspiration for more filmmakers.
Well, thank you very much for your time today. It’s been an absolute pleasure. And congratulations again on the film.
AC – Thank you.
A video recording of the full interview can be watched below:
Twenty Something is streaming on Disney+.
