How Ewa Smyk portrayed the power of self-belief through a hand-painted film

Having completed a phenomenal two-year festival circuit and now making its online debut, Ewa Smyk’s moving, multi-award-winning short film, Homebird, is a beautiful-crafted and heartfelt story of personal growth and staying true to yourself. 

Produced through the National Film & Television School, Homebird follows a young artist, Nina, who moves to a new city. Struggling to succeed in the creative field, she soon finds herself retreating into the rose-tinted memories of the village she left behind.

Meticulously created using hand-drawn 2D animation combined with 3D-modelled and hand-drawn backgrounds, the story was inspired by her own life as an immigrant, artist, daughter, granddaughter and Eastern-European. 

shots caught up with Smyk to find out more about how she reinterpreted a 100-year old animation technique, and how her own personal experiences helped bring Nina's story to life. 

How did the idea for the film come about?

Homebird, being somewhat a personal story, was inspired by the feeling of homesickness that was at its peak during the last year of my MA studies. Being my graduation film, I was feeling a lot of pressure that this film would determine the outcome of my life to some degree, certainly the next years of my life and career progression. 

What connected us was the nostalgia for what passed – the rosy tint of the memories of the places that the most carefree, joyous times of our lives were set in.

I often start with images, doing sketches and concepts, as well as more narrative ideas, and went through quite a fraught process of trying to bend any idea I had, to navigate all these different pressures I put on myself about criteria that needed to be met. 

After a while a moment of breakthrough occurred when I noticed a little scribbled drawing and a note I had made to myself during this process “why can’t I stop drawing silly old village people?”. 

Co-writer Ralph Mathers, producer Leah Jones and I were working on the ideas to pitch for our graduation film, when I saw this scribble in my sketchbook. We started sharing, reminiscing about our homes and telling each other anecdotes and stories about them. What connected us (and our stories), was the nostalgia for what passed – the rosy tint of the memories of the places that the most carefree, joyous times of our lives were set in.

It was important to me to convey the idea that the way we remember the colours, the scents, the scale, is distorted, emphasised and saturated through the lens of our emotions.

However, I also remembered the feeling of how each time I would come back to visit, I would again be surprised about how small it’d feel, and how much I’d outgrown it. Even though I don’t feel like I belong there anymore, this small village still serves an incredibly important purpose in my life – it is a symbol of my past and my upbringing, and of what I am as a human, and as an artist. 

The other key theme in Homebird is of an artist searching for their voice, and falling into pitfalls of self-doubt along the way, which I’m so familiar with!  It felt like my life at that time was mirroring our character’s journey, and I found it hard to distance myself from the story. I understood so well what she was going through, and how complex those feelings were, that I was constantly tempted to keep adding subtext and meaning. 

The story is based on your own personal experiences of being an artist and an immigrant, how much of the imagery is also inspired by real experiences?

The whole countryside sequence is loosely inspired by the village my dad comes from in Poland, and where I spent most of the summers growing up. However, when designing backgrounds from that part of the film, I wasn’t referring to photographs of any particular locations. I wanted those vignettes to feel like memories, so I decided to draw from my own memories as a part of my creative process. 

[It was] the most laborious technique I ever worked with, and definitely not the wisest choice for a graduation film of this duration!

It was important to me to convey the idea that the way we remember the colours, the scents, the scale, is distorted, emphasised and saturated through the lens of our emotions.

Were there any particular animations, artists, or other visual inspirations that influenced the film?

Technique and look-wise, I was definitely inspired by the paint-on-cel works of Swiss director Georges Schwizgebel. His work is absolutely incredible - rich in textures, featuring beautiful colour palettes and truly mind-blowing camera transitions - and all this animated traditionally! 

Can you tell us more about the creative process and technique? How long did it take to complete?

The film was created in hand-drawn 2D animation combined with 3D-modelled or hand-drawn backgrounds. The final textural, analogue look was achieved by hand-painting each frame of movement and background assets on acetate sheets using marker pens and acrylic gouaches – the most laborious technique I ever worked with, and definitely not the wisest choice for a graduation film of this duration!

I also really wanted it to fit with our character’s creative worldview, and to feel tactile, energetic, emotive, traditional, and to be a true labour of love with an emphasis on the craft - just like her own art.

Including 3D in the process not only helped speed up some parts of the production, but allowed to present the city locations in a more realistic, grounded way, in contrast to the more “illustrated”, loosely painted village landscapes. 

When it comes to painting, shooting and compositing, this part of the production took very, very long – much longer that I initially anticipated! Even though we had a bunch of amazing, talented painters on board, we didn’t make it in time for the graduation showcase, so I had to continue on by myself with a great deal of painting and compositing – which actually helped me get through a couple of 2020 lockdowns! I would say that in total, the painting alone took about 1 year to complete.

Why was it important to you to create this in a traditional, hand-painted technique, rather than painted digitally?

As the film is about an artist, I wanted the technique to have a very artistic feel to it. I also really wanted it to fit with our character’s creative worldview, and to feel tactile, energetic, emotive, traditional, and to be a true labour of love with an emphasis on the craft - just like her own art.

All the faces of those in the lobby are actually copies of the same two character designs.

Are there any interesting hidden details we might miss at first watch?

In the office scene, everyone at the lobby looks very much alike - I wanted to make a point of how this “creative” world is lacking diversity. Everyone there looks the same, wears the same outfits from the same dreary colour palette. A stark difference to the colours we see in the village scenes and in Nina’s art. All the faces of those in the lobby are actually copies of the same two character designs just to really emphasise this idea.

The music and sound design is so vital to the storytelling, can you tell us more about this, and about the song in the countryside scene?

As soon as we had a rough idea on the direction we wanted to take this story towards, I knew I wanted the film to have no dialogue and to be led by the original score. 

Natalia Tsupryk was the perfect composer for Homebird - not only is she extremely talented, but she’s also an Eastern European (Ukrainian) herself, and she instantly connected with the message and the sentiment of our story. She’s also an amazing violinist and we definitely wanted to utilise her skills in Homebird’s music. Our inspirations were very varied and included the works of Myroslav Skoryk and Steve Reich, among others.

My grandfather’s twin sister was a part of a village choir and we had access to her group’s acapella recordings.

For the village song, we wanted something that has an authentic, folky feel to it, that can really transport the viewers to the idyllic idea of that Eastern-European village, and Natalia suggested that we use a traditional song and add her original score to it. My grandfather’s twin sister was a part of a village choir and we had access to her group’s acapella recordings. It was obvious to us that we had to use one of the songs from that choir, to create an even stronger connection between Homebird’s village and its real-life inspiration.

Throughout the process I was actually feeling quite like our main character - uncertain about my art, a bit of a misfit within the mainstream creative industry, missing home and family.

When it comes to sound, I was super fortunate to be working with the superb sound designer Tatiana Sanches. Perhaps the most challenging brief for Tatiana was to find the right sounds for Chicken, and I think she did a great job and managed to utilise the humour it brings to the film and still capture its personality. 

She also created some outstanding atmospheres for all of the locations. I guess my favourite would be the sound of Nina’s apartment when she first moves in, where her excitement and happy-go-lucky mood is juxtaposed with the squeaky bed, leaking tap, the sound of the street traffic, and the neighbour’s TV behind the wall.