We recently connected with Maria Norris Scaffido and have shared our conversation below.
Maria, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
One of my projects that I’m currently producing is an experimental adult animated series called Trash Cats – made entirely by hand with traditional cut-paper stop-motion. The series follows a group of hedonistic townies in the underbelly of a seemingly-picturesque college town. The show is like a mix of Workaholics, Always Sunny and Broad City, with an experimental visual style similar to South Park’s Pilot episode.
Recently, the pilot episode was selected as part of the American Cinematheque’s PROOF of Concept Film Festival; it was the only fully animated work selected from over 500 submissions. Trash Cats also screened at Silver Lake Shorts, Loose Frames, New Film Underground Volume 8, and Sethward’s Show & Tell Show this year, and was one of the winners of the Best Adult Animated Short award at Duck and Red Octopus Film Festival. I’ve been submitting rough draft episodes to Channel 101 since July, and just this past weekend on December 2nd, the series won Best Animation at The Channies, which is their end-of-the-year awards show.
With Trash Cats, I wanted to explore what happens to young adults who “fall through the cracks” of life – asking questions about class and the culture of college towns, while also capturing the essence of the early to mid 2010s. Some of the plot points are very loosely based on my own college shenanigans – so working on this project is also my way of preserving those interesting experiences, and closing the door on that chapter of my life.
Maria, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I’m a filmmaker and stop-motion animator based in Los Angeles and originally from Syracuse, New York. My life as a storyteller began when I started working as a freelance journalist in high school. I found my work to be fulfilling, but my heart wanted something more creative.
I still wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to do with my life when I graduated, so I enrolled in Onondaga Community College, and began taking classes on radio, film and broadcast television on a whim. I became so enthralled with my school projects – it was a relief to finally know what I wanted to do for a career.
I got the opportunity to transfer into Syracuse University, but I was initially rejected from both of the film and media programs offered there since I still didn’t have much of a portfolio coming out of community college. I enrolled in the Women & Gender Studies program instead, since sociology was another interest of mine – but I was eventually able to take an elective documentary film class with Mišo Suchý. Mišo is a great professor who advocated for me, and helped me get into the program after completing his class. He and the other fantastic professors in the College of Visual and Performing Arts program introduced me to experimental animation, art video and stop-motion animators such as Jan Švankmajer and Jiří Trnka. These filmmakers opened my mind even further to creative possibilities I had never considered before, but was endlessly fascinated with.
I graduated in 2019 with a B.F.A in Film & Transmedia and a minor in Women & Gender studies. I worked mostly as an indie film Production Assistant until the pandemic hit – and the very few production companies in Central New York shut down. After a lot of research, budgeting and struggling with the uncertainty of the pandemic, my husband and I decided to take a chance to move across the country to find more work opportunities in Los Angeles. It was one of the best decisions we’ve made, and we’ve found more opportunities than we’d ever thought possible in the past three years.
Since 2020, I’ve done a variety of work in digital video production. I worked as lead video producer for two years at Buzzfeed; I’ve also worked as a Production Assistant for the stop-motion animation studio Apartment D in Burbank, and most recently produced a couple of YouTube videos for The Daily Dot. I’ve also been commissioned to edit a few videos, and animate a couple of short-form clips and music videos over the past year. Being commissioned and collaborating directly with other creatives is something I always get excited for, and I feel really grateful that my work is sought after in a city filled to the brim with incredibly talented artists.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
I’m extremely passionate about animation – both 2D, CG and stop-motion, and my hope is that my projects will eventually open more doors in the animation industry.
I’m particularly interested in animated television, and I spend a lot of my time re-watching and examining the history behind some of my favorite Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and Adult Swim shows. I try take as much as possible from what I learned – both in college, and in the television shows that inspired me throughout my life – in order to come up with fresh inspiration, and further push the experimental aspects of my work with new techniques.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
The most rewarding thing about being an artist is seeing firsthand the ways in which the audience connects with your work – and by extension, you. Seeing someone laugh at a joke that started out as an idea in your head, then transferred to words on a paper, then images on a screen is an incredibly surreal and special feeling. I’m really grateful for the recent opportunities I’ve had to screen my work in front of live audiences, and being able to see the impact it has on others’ first hand. It really feels like a privilege to share and connect with people in ways only visual art can promote.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.mar-an-films.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mar_an_films/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/trashcatsanimation/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trashcatsanimation/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/trash_cats_tv
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/deeppocketsful
- Other: https://vimeo.com/trashcatsanimation
Image Credits
Dashiell King
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