I had finally finished the 176th slide of my animation. My hands numb from the pressing of pencil to cell pounded, thanking me for stopping the mayhem I put them through. That overwhelming emotion of holding the thickness of a completed job, had me beaming with meaning.

“I did it!” I screamed to my mom who was at her kitchen desk, “I had finally completed my genie animation!” My mother, who witnessed my madness from buying tracing paper, converting my reference from film to fps ( frames per second), was just as ecstatic as I was. Unfortunately, that sensation of joy fell short when I realized that I had to retrace it again, but this time with color. 

Over the course of quarantine, I was completing my daily dose of Tik Tok, where I scrolled on a new dance challenge. Kids from around the world were performing the dance “Friend Like Me,” from the new movie Aladdin. Getting sucked in the void of dance after dance, an idea struck. I knew I could create something extraordinary, it was a challenge. Instead of me performing the dance alone, I would have the genie animated beside me. But there was one issue, how do you animate?

For the next two months, from the resources that were available to me. I gathered my knowledge from YouTube, books, and intuition. Trying to replicate from the masters at Disney. It was a challenge, but it felt right, as if it was a calling to do something so absurd. Completing in total in over 3 months, 176 frames of the genie that lasted only 12 seconds. 

It is a fact that animation is shot in twos, meaning every drawing equates for two frames. A typical film usually runs at 24 fps, in a 2- minute animation, 24 fps would equate to 1,440 drawings. After digesting that intimidating math equation that would be seen on the SAT, a sane person would not even think twice about going through this torment. But that single handedly is the only reason why I want to do this for a living.