Why You Need to Watch This Disney Intern’s Short Film “Ventana”

Just for a quick start the story is by Apollonia Thomaler, and this is kind of cute little short film depicting a young woman stuck inside what looks like a dreary study arranging and cleaning the area while the stern and even mean-looking visage of what looks like a figure dressed in a captain’s garb glares outward from a painting hung upon a wall. The project is the work of a group of interns at Walt Disney Animation Studios and took a little over 2 months to create. Yeah, this one short little video took 2 months to develop and release. That kind of gives you an idea of what really goes into the full-length animated features that are released to the public every so often. It’s a ton of work for those that aspire to be animators but it’s all worth it in the end when the final product is rolled out.

Ventana seems to be about the constant and unending drudgery of life that goes on when all one does is work without any seeming end in sight. Life gets a bit depressing during such moments, and can be a little overwhelming as it’s shown to be. Sometimes you’ve got to just open the window and let life shine in for a bit. And on occasion if life steps in and makes a mess of things, as will happen from time to time, it’s important to recognize those moments for what they are and enjoy the wonder and the risk that comes with going against the grain. It’s worth it at times to ignore what must be done in order to find out what CAN be done.

It’s hard to create a life worth living when all you do is follow the rules and patterns laid down by society and dictated by those that seek to lord over you. Eventually it becomes far wiser to take another tact and open the door to excitement and wonder, no matter what it might bring you. Ventana shows us that while order and stability are important, they must also be left in their place from time to time in order to find the adventure and thrill in life that we might otherwise miss if we don’t grab that moment and run with it.

It still boggles my mind that it took a small crew a little over 2 months start and finish this project, but when I really think about it that seems about right. The time it takes to develop one frame in a short film all depends on how complex it is and how much detail is used in each frame. As you can tell from Ventana the animators took the time and care to make it as detailed as possible, so it took a great amount of effort to get this done in two months. For what they did however and the message it sends this is a very well done film and might even be worth of its own feature if things went right.