Scroll down to read about Dileniation Studio Work Projects -
Animation, Independent Films, Video Production, Art and Community Initiatives.
When I was a child I loved Saturday morning cartoons, as an adult I love the genre of "adult animations" but it's not the same thing.
Cartoons made for children are silly and wacky and the superior form of animation, I think. But I get it, we're grown now and we have to take things seriously... that's why a lot of animations are human characters and not a wise cracking rabbit (Shout out to the Looney Tunes Show).
Cartoon re-runs were essential for me as an English as a Second Language student. I had watched nearly every episode of Spongebob Squarepants in Spanish, so when I arrived in the United States understanding the English versions was a little bit easier.
Once I was proficient in English I was moved to English only classes, a challenging moment in my life. That year my Language arts class started incorporating the Flocabulary workbooks into the curriculum. I think it's the coolest thing that I've been able to work on their animated songs as an adult.
When I was approached by Nearpod's (Flocabulary's parent company) Art Director, Natasha Sharpe to work on a video for one of their grammar lessons I was overcome with joy and delight at life's fun synchronicities. I told her how I still have the Muhammed Ali song memorized, one of the first lessons from their first workbooks. Back in the day they used to give us CD's with the workbooks, now they make cool music videos.
If you didn't have the pleasure of learning from the Flocab curriculum as a child, you missed out. Flocabulary provides a fun, rhythmic and engaging plan to learn vocabulary and grammar lessons. Additionally their songs are based on historical and mythical, figures and events, which further the learning opportunities for young people.
Animating the story of Paul Bunyan and his blue ox Babe had me laughing all night. The grammar lesson attached was about Hyperboles, so things needed to be exaggerated. I enjoyed working on this video so much that I animated myself in it at the end.
I was one of the villager that ate the huge pancake.
The Prince and The Sphinx incorporates grammar lessons of metaphor and similes. For this project I decided to incorporate surrealism into the animation. The song was performed in first person, so it was important for me to animate Thutmose the IV rapping the lyrics.
Dr. Charles Drew, "The Father of Blood Banking", his design was based on some very old family portraits. In my sketchbook I conceptualized and early 20th century laboratory and hospital. I was moved to making the animation for this song resonate like a mural painting, like you'd see in predominately black communities honoring outstanding historical figures in the community.
With each song I create a new world and characters.
Over the years I've animated for many projects and companies, but animating for educational purposes is truly a fulfilling ways to execute my craft.
The fun part is that there's no limitations on what can be animated, that's the thing that draws me to cartoons. Drawing alone has always been a particularly powerful form of expression, multiplied times 24 frames per second and a video codec, shoot... you might just take over the world.
Will you make it so extreme that you make me mad?
Now that video is widely available there's been a push to make everything live action or to make everything as close to life-like as possible. Creatively this is dull, animated films could benefit from a little more of the silly, wacky stuff that made animation such a powerful medium to begin with.
Video is already realistic enough, but pictures do little to convey all the colors that live within our imaginations. I work in both worlds, naturally my imagination pushes me to mix mediums up.
Long answer short After Effects is one of my favorite tools.
You can expect me to consider carefully and creatively - all the relevant details of your project to develop character styles that embody your vision.
These are the usual steps to my animation projects.
Independent filmmakers bring unique stories to life. They move the whole film industry forward with unconventionality.
How I landed on Filmmaking, From the beginning.
When I was a freshman at RISD I was confronted with what at the time felt like the most important decision of my life, in hindsight I might have been influenced by the stress emanating from college hill. If you don't know anything about RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) let me summarize it with this, it's one of the best art and design colleges in the world, very elite and curated for the wealthy. I got a full ride scholarship after I busted my a** creating a thesis portfolio. Even full ride scholarships don't cover the cost of living in such a wealthy environment. Needless to say, I did have to take on student loans and part time work study jobs , but that's a story for another day.
I got in with a strong painting portfolio, with some drawing pieces here and there to demonstrate my drafting skills. I did not incorporate any films or photography projects in my RISD application.
However, throughout high school and elementary school I was active in the drama club and had developed a love for storytelling.
Fun fact I once played Juliet in my Middle School rendition of Romeo and Juliet, and I don't know if I'll ever experience the ecstasy of being casted as the lead in THE Middle School play, ever again. It wasn't just acting it was everything about it, specially the scripts.
I had written plays here and there, some comics for English class, but my thing was drawing. Let me quote High School Musical for my late millennial early Gen Z folks...Stick to the Status Quo. I wasn't as confident in my writing then, for as you already know English is my second language.
Around this time I was a stoop kid, my bestie and I spent hours on my doorstep every day after school. We used to make up stories of the people walking by, silly stories. There was Little Man Big Shoes, Steven (neighborhood dork) and some other characters I cannot recall.
Together we came up with a fictional talks show called Linner, Not quite lunch time not quite Dinner... it took off.
One of the most fruitful ideas that came out of the stoop days is The Bucket List. This was around the time that the major motion picture of the same name came out, we wanted to make a video about a list of buckets we wanted to buy before we die. I wrote a script for a short video that made little sense, shot it and published it to ( very early days) facebook. It was glittery bananas and all fourteen of my facebook friends loved it. Thus my love for the crafting of films began.
When I started writing.
Back to the collective stress of Freshman year at RISD, or how you'd say it in art school, foundation year. I felt tremendous pressure to continue painting, from my peers, who all seemed a bit confused on which discipline to take. After carefully considering it I decided that I wanted to go into a major that captured all of the things I was interested in, which is a lot. Take a look at this website, am I right? Film, Animation and Video (FAV) felt like a leap into cold water and I was obsessed with learning how to swim.
The first year into the FAV major is a combination of introductory Film (traditional), Animation and Video classes. There are technically driven and do a good job in explaining each branch on its own, there's also mixed media introduction that taught us how to combine them. Instinctually I wanted to work on animation for my thesis, but I also wanted to develop my film production and directing skills. So I took classes in all of it.
But I kept finding writing inspiration in the technical filmmaking. This lead me to kept writing short stories, that I kept in a folder for a later date. I had written the first short iteration of my feature film a year before I decided to shoot it for my directing actors class. To my surprise the rush execution of F@#$ Boys, a short which only featured one of the F___ Boys in the whole film, was well received and granted me an A.
In the years that followed I wrote short script after short script, all dealing with similar story concepts. Young women aren't really prepared for the types of young men that they will encounter, romance is dead. This was a recurring topic in my life and the life of a lot of my friends, so I kept writing.
One year after I graduated with my Bachelor's in Fine Arts, the first in my family to receive a college education, I had to be rescued. A friend picked me up and dropped me in Brooklyn, after severe traumatic experiences at he hands of a man. When I moved to Brooklyn I was able to see the insight and connections within the stories I had written in the folder. So I decided to put them together into a film.
That's easier said than done, t took me almost three years to complete a first draft of the script, which ended up being an 88 page feature. During that time I acquired all the skills and experience I needed to produce this project. I was also able to gather equipment resources, scout locations, find crew and get an overall sense of the task at hand. It was also helpful that by the time I was ready to produce the feature, I had already DP'ed another feature film which was doing well in the festival circuit.
Shout out to all the Young directors that get together on Saturday Morning to shoot for the sake of film. I've had the privilege of working with many self starters, navigating the complicated world of movies. Independent Filmmaker inspire ingenuity.
Let's unite in complaining about all the work it take to do absolutely anything. Film Production is no different than anything else, and if looks easy to you, you don't work twelve hour days under the tungsten lights.
Breaking it down into steps was essential to keeping the sanity. Writing aside, bringing crew and cast members together with one goal requires tons planning. For the F@#$ Boys feature film project, I created spreadsheets to track every aspect of the job.
I made a spreadsheet of every actor that auditioned (close to 300) with their contact information, roles and notes on their performances. Once they were casted, their photo (which we took during auditions) was added to a different spreadsheet that list the scenes they're in, their role description and relevant directorial notes.
This character spreadsheet was linked to a breakdown sheet, that describes every scene, locations and crew required with timing in the film. With this sheet I was able to plan shoot dates around cast members, crew, locations and scene details.
Additionally we created sheets to track props, costumes, equipment and individual dietary preferences. All this information would go seamlessly into a call sheet that mapped out each day (total of 15) in the production down to the T. Organization is key, specially if you're also directing the film.
All of this production work was worth it because I was able to self fun and shoot my entire 88 page script, without keeping people overtime and maintaining moral.
If you're into the details as much as me, the best part is planning everything out well in advance. Wether it goes according to that plan is another story.
Planning is great but you need to be flexible to avoid breaking. Making a movie is a lot of planning and a lot of compromising when life things don't go to plan.
Here's a story I'll be telling for a while. A few weeks before I started shooting my feature film, I was booked to work as a live streaming and sound technician for kids show. This production ran at the same time as I was shooting my indie on the weekends. What's the saying? No rest for the wicked?
The kids show was called The Beehive and it was produced by Oxford University Productions. The premise of the show is to teach kids all over the world how to pronounce english words. Each week we would shoot a new level with kids of different age groups. The scripts were around 40 pages and each line was meant to be pronounced correctly, emphasized by the Oxford production team.
The first week of production we had to shoot level one, with eight year old kids. This week the hired director got COVID and couldn't be part of production. One of the Producers from the UK came for the week to overlook and step in to Direct. The producer walked us through the entire process and what the desired outcome would be.
During this first week of production I found out that I am great working with child talent. This is something the producer noticed as well. The kids responded to my charismatic energy. I think the fact that I didn't kneel down to talk to them and that I treated them with the same respect I treat adults had something to do with it as well.
The second week came, we were moving on to level two. The kids were swapped for nine year olds. The director had come in COVID free and long story short the kids did not respond well to his direction, so the production team decided to let him go to save the production. While the director was bombing in directing the kids, I had to pick up the slack in whatever ways I could. The producers noticed this and decided to have me direct the rest of the series.
I'll write on the experience of directing children another day. But the amount of knowledge I gathered from working with children on set was perfectly translated into my experience directing my independent film project. People respond to respectful direction even children. Understanding the project's vision is essential for good direction. Keeping thing exciting will yield great performances.
That's the story of the summer where I was on set everyday for two months.
Although I have an affinity for performance, I do no like acting on project where I'll be editing. My favorite part about editing is being invisible.
Short form video content rules the world and I'm servant with Editing Software.
Variable titles for video production roles :
Director of Photography, Video Editor, Videographer, Cinematographer, Video Producer, Video Content Creator, Social Media Videographer, Live Streaming Video Technician . Can't think of any more.
A person who produces, shoots and edits videos is complex.
In an ever evolving world of virtual technology video makers are framers of social content. Images, particularly the one that move, have taken over as the most accessible format to share and distribute information. To limit the ways in which video can exists is severely misunderstanding the medium.
It can be tempting to stick with what works. Because of the accessibility the video format it is the best form spread information. Going back to my main reason for pursuing a career in video production as an artist: Video incorporates everything. Because it's a way to document time and expression in one place. That's why creative video making requires us to think of what video can be and where it exists, beyond what has already been made.
I constantly become paralyzed when asked for a reel or work sample. It doesn't make sense to me to show you what I've done for someone else, because I'm going to make something unique to you. Not to mention that it puts me, as the creator in a niche box with what I've made in the past. All I wish is to be given the opportunity to break the paradigms that grown stale, and replace them with inspired constructions with purpose. Same reason I hate templates. Also, the reason why there's so much text and linking on this site...
I understand the need for proof of concept, for trust in an artist's ability to get the job done. But please give us (creatives) the opportunity to show you how we can work best with you, in the way that best suits us to express ourselves. When you keep asking people to showcase themselves in neat little templates, you lose the original thinkers that hate that sh*t.
Whenever I'm asked to send a video of myself for a potential gig, I run away. There's validity in being an influencer, and there's plenty of grey areas between influencers and filmmaker. However, when you're asking me to step in front of camera and send you content that you can judge at your leisure without my presence, you are taking all the power. Which immediately shows a power in balance, of me having to create something of myself before even meeting you. I love zoom meetings, I hate sending video auditions.
When I was casting my film I opted out of the standard, sending of a pre-recorded audition tapes. Why? Because I wanted to meet people in person before I could consider working with them. I also wanted them to meet me and the team. Film and video collaborations are 90% in person work which is a dynamic that requires everyone involved to be comfortable.
Social media video content has given me and probably everyone else, the ability to curate their image to their liking. When it comes to employment, where you're not a digestible bite of information on the internet, you need to test for interactivity. The real things that happen before the recoding and after, are the things that count most when working with a filmmaker. That's why I also hate sending in a Resume...
I get it though, you have an overwhelming amount of applicants. I just don't think that people can be sorted out so easily with mediums that can be so manipulated.
To sum it up. What I'm trying to say is that I am uncomfortable with the constant requirements to make me the things I make. I make art, but I'm not art. I'm a person with the skills make videos content for social media, I do not want to be a social media video myself.
Here's a something to consider when creating engaging video content for your business.
Does your video follow your branding guide so closely that it would be undistinguishable from anything else you've made before? Sorry, but it needs to be said. Your brand colors don't need to be constantly reused, maybe they can evolve. I know it's the easy route, I know it's aesthetically pleasing, but that's too much branding.
We're constantly bombarded with branding, from all directions, from all types of organizations. Even the minimalist aesthetic, even the no branding aesthetic... It's a template for doing the same thing over and over again. Change it up a bit. Try something different? (Part of this is my frustration with Hollywood and Movie industry redoing the same old crap over and over again.)
If they are told what to make then you are hiring that artists and should provide appropriate monetary payment for their labor.
November of 2016 was a terrible month. Not only for political reasons, although, the day after the election my European Film History professor resigned because he experienced an existential crisis due to Donald Trump winning his presidential campaign. Needless to say there was turmoil in academia. I was in the middle of my thesis project and my personal life was in crisis, not just the mental sector but the financial one too.
Throughout college I worked at "The Met" not the metropolitan museum but the Dining hall at RISD. I would come in at 6:00AM for the breakfast shift every morning. Once breakfast was out at 7:00AM I would work on lunch prep for the day. One morning in October 2016, I slipped in the walk-in fridge while carrying a huge tub of potatoes and everyone laughed. No one rushed to check if I was okay, and the only concern seemed to be the potatoes. At that moment I thought to myself "I gotta get a better job". Because I was a student at RISD, the Met was my work study and I could've been hurt. The disregard for my safety told me I had to find some other way of making money.
I looked for work. The school had a career portal where I sent my resume out to several listings in the area. I heard back from a company that needed and assistant. Long story short because I still have no idea how it happened, I got scammed out of money I didn't have and November 2016 sucked a**.
In my angst at my negative bank account balanced I looked for help, I told teachers and advisors of my situation. No one seemed to have any resources for me, and I felt defeated and deeply broke. So here is where I want to start talking about my journey as an artist. During the Thanksgiving break, when I was having trouble figuring out food and you know other necessities that cost money, I resorted to my one true savior, my art.
Ms. Snow was the first person to buy my art work. She was my freshman (High School) English teacher. I think she liked my sketchbook, which at the time was the most important item I owned and I was constantly drawing on it in class. During a group project where we had to create drawings based on some Roald Dahl stories, I put a lot of effort into creating these quirky comic strips for our group.
Ms. Snow is a black woman, and although at the time I was oblivious to the significance of having a supporting guiding figure with my same race, if you look at my art work (and Film) today you'll notice that I caught on. She approached me after class one day and asked for an estimate for a portrait of some kids (friend's of hers I think). I thought, fifty dollars would do it and I got to working on it. I got some paints and a canvas from Michael's and I did a painting.
At the time I was only on my freshman year at the Jersey City Arts High School Program (JCAHSP), to which I accredit most of my educational success. We hadn't gotten to painting or even drawing with color yet, so the fact that I was taking on a commission was kind of wild. But $50 is $50 and during this time I barely ever had money for school lunch. My Family was very fragmented and also just poor.
So Ms. Snow really loved the painting and she even tipped me an extra $25 for such a good job. After that, each year of High School Ms.Snow bought a painting from me and she would pay me a little more each time, and the paintings would get better as I was improving my observational skills etc... Eventually other teachers caught on to my art work, and they started purchasing art from me too. One teacher saw me carrying a painting and bought it on the spot and another teacher saw this and decided to commission a painting from m. Extra pocket cash.
I wasn't balling or anything, but the $100 painting sales here and there really helped. This was also something that I wasn't advertising, people were coming to because they saw me with my art in hand wanted to buy something. This was an expression of validation from my community.
I'm sure you know the skepticism that comes with pursuing a career in painting or any kind of visual arts. It's like incomprehensible for people sometimes. Specially in immigrant communities to perceive something so in-practical as viable, it's not it. Growing up in Jersey City there was a lot of gang activity and violence in the streets, but I wouldn't say that's the main descriptor for Jersey City. Jersey City is an art incubator for diverse creatives.
By the time I was applying for college I had done several (free) pre-college programs, including RISD's summer program where I got a scholarship at 15. Dickinson High School is not known for SAT Scores, high college admissions or anything like that. Dickinson High School had a bad reputation but I do believe that's partly because the world is not nice to Black and Brown communities. Because Dickinson High School had the most brilliant young minds I've ever come across. But it was very crowded.
Getting those SAT's was the plight, because it wasn't something that was pushed for students at Dickinson. Basically the vibes were that they didn't think any of us would even want to go to college other than community college. Anyway, I got some good STA scores after fighting for my freaking life to get some of of those prep books. I'm not proud to admit it, but I even stole a couple from the library.
There was no precedent in my family for going to college, for taking the SAT's or for applying for financial aid. Unfortunately this was a common situation in Jersey city high school's families. This is why JCAHSP was such a huge part of my life. The teachers in the program had the best intentions of helping us get into good colleges and financial aid. Shout out to Ms.Ward, Ms.Difeo, Mr.Yuscavage and Mr.Bradford. I had a falling out with Ms.Frazier about the Trump incident but she was there too, I am just suspicious of internal racism from her.
The JCAHSP started out in a basement of the New Jersey City University. The program which was called VPA (Visual and Performing arts) at first had run for years from there. However, my sophomore year the school district moved us to the 4th floor of Snyder High School, due to budget cuts. To this day they keep cutting that budget but the program still tries to stay.
Ms. Ward (Jessica is her first name) was the freshman year teacher who affected my whole entire life with her support for me and my classmates. Even when she wasn't our teacher, even to this day, she helped us all out. She taught us how to draw with perspective, how to shade, how to use watercolor... I don't know what else to tell you. Her class is the best introduction to technical drawing any kid could ever have. She was also there for emotional support, and she's still there now. Jessica Ward is also a jewelry designer and practicing artist.
Ms.Difeo (Julia) taught Sophomore year, and she is also a RISD graduate and the person who introduced me to the college. She was the teacher that pushed us to go to these free pre-college courses in New York City. Thanks to Ms.Difeo I was able to take classes at NYU and Cooper Union. Much of my use of color in drawing and painting comes from my what she taught us.
Mr. Yuscavage (Peter) taught me my Junior year. He introduced us to the vast history of art and artist. He is the most resonant voice in my head for compositions. He was also the first to introduce me to digital art making which in term lead me to my interest in animation.
Mr. Bradford, or William Bradford the artist ran the program throughout my time there. He was a master practicing artist who taught us of the eccentricities and possibilities in the field. He introduced me to the world of art in Chelsea, NYC.
Overall these teachers had a huge impact in how I think about my work. I went on to college fully prepared to be an artist. They helped me cultivate a work ethic, a vision and a voice.
At the end of each school year the JCAHSP holds a group art show for all the grades. This is a wonderful exhibit, to which I recommend you go if you happen to be in Jersey City during May. JCAHSP seniors also have individual art shows for which they design post card and posters.
My senior year, I wanted to find a unique space for our show. I was doing my senior show with my friends Kelsey Reilly and Sumeet Mahesh, both practicing artist today. With a lot of tenacity we approached a neighborhood gallery, called the Distillery Gallery and asked to have our group showing there. Gabriel Pacheco, the gallery director, gave us the opportunity. We became great friends, and he has also been a supporter of my art career.
The show was called "Socially Inadequate" sort of reflecting on our collective awkwardness as teen girls. It was a success for us that we had no expected, the whole community showed up. Bought our art work and celebrated our individual achievements. At the time I had already accepted going to RISD, Sumeet went to another great art school Maryland Institute College of Art, and Kelsey was going to Parsons The New School.
I made enough money from the art work sales to fund the majority of my first year of college expenses while looked for work. Ms. Snow was one of the people who bought art from me at my senior show.
Back to November 2016, my senior year at RISD. I spent the Thanksgiving break making art, which I quickly catalogues and sent out to people who had bought art from me before. Ms. Snow was one of the first people to respond and purchase art from me again. She helped me finish college by supporting my art.
At this point I have accumulated years of experience in the fine arts world. The conversations I encounter in fine arts culture tends to cater to the elite (rich) educated people. often times it deals with the "ephemeral" or abstract or a feeling or color exploration. Sometimes if the work is representational it deals with subject matter that hides within the books in the libraries that many have not entered.
I can never reach so high that I forget the places and people from where I came from. It's a cliche like Jenny from the block. When making physical manifestations of ideas, I believe that representation is accessibility. If my people can't understand my paintings then I who am I making them for?
I make my subject matter accessible to black, Hispanic, low income communities that also deserve to engage in art and its intellectual properties. While at the same time opening a discussion on subject matter. As opposed to ideas of privilege, I'm inspired by the circumstances of the world and my upbringing.
I think it's important to eloquent and include more of the people who have been barred from entering this field due to economical and systemic oppression. Sometimes I think that representing oppression to the art world alone, enforces the system. If I'm going to talk about my people and what we've through, I want them in the conversation.
I want them to understand the imagery, I want them to become aware of the different art movement that are trying to depict them. But most importantly I want my family, my friends and my community to see beauty in the context of art that is made in their image.
I have felt this way about my work for a few years now. What I've been working on developing are outdoor neighborhood exhibits that mimic gallery style, with art statement and description but that are placed like street art would be. Installations of paintings in alleyways and vandalized walls. I've held community events where other artist can come in as well and share on the experience. There's a lot of way that I'm considering these concepts, but I try to stay away from the capitalist ideals of the art world. Even-though, I need money, I try to explore other possibilities of making money for my needs while still making art that is true to my cause.
I have sold original paintings. I do sell prints of my work and often times these I make affordable to the community. Basically I'm trying to sell out.
The continuity of ideas and actions in our physical world.
The concept of developing into niche practices, though is rich in capital potential, is not an accessible or practical use of the resources we have. I have a suspicion that the practice of separating into isolated niche careers is more beneficial to the capitalist system than the people it represents. Working on projects that integrate with the environment and its people helps me towards achieving abalance between what I do for work and what I do for my community.
The front yard area of this apartment building was empty. In late March I decided to try planting there and seeing what grows. It's been a mixed bag of results, but has become a talking point in my local community. Everyone loved the Bok Choy growing. there.
In 2021 the garden was in buckets collected from the streets, recycled Target bags, plastic crates and any kind of container that could hold enough dirt for a plant. The life of this garden was cut short by Hurricane Ida, which flooded me out of the basement apartment I was living in.
F234 Film Production is film production company founded by Dilenia Rodriguez and Kara Fan. They're working on art-centered film projects that represent diverse communities. Consider helping them create more films.
The path to incorporating community into my art making has been organic. It's one of the things I hope to build throughout my career. It usually starts by making a connection with a neighbor, or making an observation in my neighbor hood.
For Example, when I lived in Crown heights I used to pass by an empty store front every day after work. One day I noticed that a new Tea Shop opening. After attending a few events there I had an idea to work on a muti-media art event in the space and I reached out. We created several art events that brought customers to the new business and cultivated community around creative ventures.
The cool thing about being a video creative is that every organization can benefit from a video about their work. Over the years I've been able to work with people who run these places to make videos that they can use to promote their services on social media.
Short-form Video is the substance of much of the media content people are consuming. For many organizations who's mission inhabits the physical worlds reaching audiences online is necessary. By helping them create videos and graphic content to post online I can help them show up on Searches and be found by people who are interested.
These are Organization for which I've Media For:
