Bobble Hat

Animation: Directed by Zitong Cui (China; UCLA) This is an original story I created titled Bobble Hat , and its theme is friendship and loss. The overall style is like watercolor illustrations—vivid and colorful, without clearly defined objects. Everything is abstracted into shapes and lines. The inspiration for this story came from an image I once saw. I thought there must be a lot of interesting stories happening inside those little bubble chains. The two main characters are CO₂ and O₂, symbolizing photosynthesis in plants. In my story, they pilot bubbles together on various missions. Since CO₂ has one extra carbon atom, I designed it with a small bump on its head, which makes it feel insecure. But O₂ knits a hat for it to cover that bump. And the narrative structure is inspired by The House of Small Cubes, using a flashback approach to tell the story. Runtime: 5:10, Founders Theatre