"The Night Witch" – Compositing & Animation
Role: Compositor & Post-Production Animator
Project:The Night Witch (The New York Times Op-Docs)
Collaborator: Dustin Grella
Year: 2013
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In 2023, I assisted independent animator Dustin Grella on The Night Witch, a short film produced for The New York Times Op-Doc series. Known for his signature tactile, pastel-on-slate style, Grella’s work relies heavily on a raw, analog aesthetic. My role was to handle the digital compositing and provide additional post-production animation, seamlessly blending digital enhancements with his traditional media.
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The primary objective was to polish the film for a major editorial platform without sanitizing its handcrafted soul. I needed to add digital elements and clean up raw frame sequences while preserving the grit, texture, and natural "boil" of the physical artwork.
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Tactile Compositing: Layered and blended raw stop-motion image sequences. I managed color grading to enhance the physical pastels and executed careful artifact cleanup—removing studio dust and rig shadows while keeping the organic imperfections intact.
Post-Production Animation: Created additional 2D digital animation elements to support the film's narrative.
Aesthetic Matching: Handled frame-rate matching (animating on "twos" and "threes") and applied custom displacement maps and noise textures so the digital additions perfectly mimicked Grella’s physical medium.
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The Night Witch successfully launched on The New York Times Op-Docs platform. The post-production work delivered a seamless blend of analog artistry and digital precision, elevating the visual storytelling while fully preserving the unique, handcrafted charm required for the piece.