A desktop animated film depicting a Y2K apocalypse as the result of binary code and monopoly capitalism.
•Installation• Animation Direction • Concept Development • 3D Modeling• 2D + 3D Animation
Animated & Directed by Lin Wen-Ben
Illustrator: Harrison Carpenter, Greg Archuleta, Annie Meyer, Lea Greenwood, Wen-Ben and Dayana Ruiz
Background: Rob Evens
Sound: Josh Gondrez & Shelby Rahe Miles
Film Festival Screenings & Honors:
Bolton International Film Festival | London Short Film Festival | Mosaic World Film Festival (Award Winner, Best Experimental Student Film) | Absurd Art House Film Festival (Finalist) | AniMate - Australia Animation Film Festival (Finalist) | Florida Animation Festival (Finalist) | Student World Impact Film Festival (Honorable Mention) | Flatworld & Friends | Factual Animation Film Festival | Somerville International Film Festival | Toronto Film Week | Los Angeles Super Shorts Film Festival | Doc.Berlin Documentary Film Festival | Trickfilm Festival Düsseldorf - Contemporary Animation | RENDACON (Animation and Visual Effects Film Festival) | Sustainable Stories Film Fest | CineToro Experimental Film Festival | WILD OUT VIDEO FESTIVAL | Paris Film Art Festival | Obskuur Ghent Film Festival | Supernova Digital Animation Festival | Live Soundtrack | Hallucinea Film Festival | The Arthouse Film Festival | Animation Chico.
Keyframe Illustrations
RIP 9-5 - Dead of the Workaholic,
Digital painting, 2020
Mural - Timeless Painting,
Digital painting, 2020
The Story Behind the Film’s Creation
The idea for this film began with the forest fires near Denver, Colorado—an event that felt like the end of the world and inspired my drawing, “Mural - Timeless Painting.” A week later, I created “RIP 9-5 - Death of the Workaholic” after witnessing someone die from overwork just before the pandemic. In 2021, during a heatwave in New York with no air conditioning, I had to finish a project in six weeks, shortly after recovering from Covid. Needing something quick for a critique, I turned these two drawings into a film. I decided to create a desktop film and imagined an apocalypse caused by the Y2K bug, blending the anxiety of Y2K with my own climate anxiety, and used Microsoft icons as ready-made images to structure the narrative.
Installation
