Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Rachel Max Huss. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Rachel Max, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

I’d say probably the most meaningful project I’ve worked on (at least so far), has been my senior thesis “Kar’uth and the Pathstone,” which I completed for my final semester of the Cinema and Media Arts (CMA) program at Biola University. [You can find the proof of concept at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLHZbncC5j4] This project was not only a massive leap of faith that took me outside my comfort zone as an artist, but it also is one of the first times I got to see a story that was integral to me as a person be appreciated by others. For background, “Kar’uth and the Pathstone” originated from a 1 am doodle in September 2020 of a girl in a red scarf staring at a vast empty landscape. After some development, the world became one of mages and masks, and I started to realize that these characters and the world was starting to mirror my own experience as a “gifted” kid back in middle school and high school, as well as my feelings of inadequacy as an artist and human being.

When it came time to pick a story for my capstone project, I didn’t have any ideas except “Kar’uth.” The story and the characters spoke to me in a way none of my other ideas did. My capstone was originally going to be a lookbook for a potential 3rd-person platforming game–as well as a basic script–but my lovely screenwriting professor Jim Hope told me that since I liked to draw, I should do a proof-of-concept animatic for a TV series. With voice acting and music. I thought he was insane.
We were already about 3 weeks into the semester, and most people who were doing large projects had already assembled their team. I didn’t even have a script. But I took a chance, created an Instagram page for the project, and sent out a call for all the roles I thought I’d need. I filled my entire production team in less than 24 hours. It was such an incredible feeling to watch people step up for the project, even without knowing much about it.

Actually, most of the development for Kar’uth was a wild ride. When I was a senior, Biola didn’t have an animation program. If my memory is correct, my animatic for Kar’uth was only the second animatic made for a CMA senior thesis, and the only one with full voice acting and sound design. I wish I could remember the name of the director for the other animatic but we were only briefly shown their pitch deck in the capstone class as an example.
Since I didn’t have access to professional animation software (and had never drawn an animatic or storyboarded anything in my life), I drew all of the frames in Procreate’s clunky animation tab, and patched the rough cut together in the basic version of DaVinci Resolve. It took hours. Let’s just say I pulled a lot of 2 am nights finishing all 260 frames. Audio recording was done in 3 days if I remember correctly, and when we were done with voice actors and SFX we had close to 400 audio files. Plus, only a few of my voice actors had acting experience, but they all knocked it out of the park!
The audio editing was done virtually by my friend Melody Eilts, with hours of Discord calls between us as I finalized the frames and she mixed all the dialogue and SFX. She was the one who–through the magic of audio editing–managed to splice some dialogue to fix a line I had hated from the very first draft of the script. I couldn’t have done it without her or the rest of my team.

It was a crazy ride and my team managed to pull it all together (despite some initial issues matching editing to Rawleigh K. Grove’s amazing score) before the rough cut was shown at Biola’s Guerilla Film Festival. There weren’t a ton of attendees to the screening, but seeing it on a projector was a surreal (if anxiety-inducing) experience.

Finishing the proof of concept for its premiere in July 2022 was exhilarating, but it was the process that I remember the most. During the months of production on “Kar’uth and the Pathstone,” I learned so much about animation and storyboarding, as well as myself and my team. I posted tons of art to my various Instagram accounts to promote the story and introduce the characters, and heard so much feedback from my production team and my Instagram followers about how much the characters meant to them. I was blessed to hear so many personal stories. It was very encouraging. I also had the opportunity to pitch Kar’uth’s story at three different CMA-hosted pitch nights (one of them with industry professionals) and got feedback on how to be better at selling my stories, and I even got to pitch it to random CMA students walking to class.

And Kar’uth as a character became more important to me, because her story is much like my own story. Hearing other people connect with her on a deep level and empathize with her story — that was something really cool.

The story is still in development, but it did have some ramifications for the CMA program as a whole. My Recording Engineer Richard K.E. Gunasekera III (Richie) went on to be the animation director for “EVER-FLOWING,” one of the Fall 2022 Biola films. The project led me to a slew of people I never knew were interested in animation, and I got to meet so many cool people simply by talking about the project. Additionally, the interest in animation during my time working on “Kar’uth” skyrocketed, and my completion of the proof-of-concept may have been part of the push to finally get an Animation program started at Biola. I’m an avid fan of animation and I’m so glad to see people who worked on and supported my project continuing the legacy.

I’m currently in the process of re-boarding the proof-of-concept, since the quality isn’t up to my standards for storyboards, and I’m still very hopeful that one day I can turn this story into the full animated series it’s intended to be.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Rachel Max Huss, but please call me Max! I hail from Central Minnesota, and currently reside in Southern California. I’ve been drawing ever since I can remember (and daydreaming about stories for even longer) but I finally put that passion to work and graduated from Biola’s CMA program in 2022 with a concentration in Writing for Film and TV. I initially wanted to go to college to write movies, but after teaching myself digital art during the pandemic, I came out of Biola wanting to write, draw, and direct animated shows for the 10-15 age demographic.

I’m still very early in my career, so when I’m not prepping food at Knott’s Berry Farm, I’m working as a Freelance Illustrator and character designer. Since I didn’t go to school for art, I’m building my drawing skills up to match the writing skills I built in college, and ideally I’ll be able to get my foot in the door of an animation company to start bringing animated stories to life. I post most of my art journey in that regard via my Instagram page @spot_the_jay.

I’ve been told one of the things I’m great at is bringing an emotional depth to stories and art. The characters feel real and impactful, and elicit an emotional response without losing a hopeful outlook. That’s something I’ve always strived for in my stories, and I think it’s what sets me apart from a lot of other creators. Maybe it’s my experience struggling with mental health and the strain of being labeled a “gifted” kid, but I think it’s important to create stories that are well-rounded emotionally and intellectually – but not without hope. It’s why I love stories that fall in the 10-15 age range so much – there’s space for deep conversations, but it’s still approachable by a wide demographic range.

I’d say I’m most proud of the work I’ve done with “Kar’uth,” as well as the rest of the animated projects I’m currently developing. They deal with themes of shame and redemption, seeing the human in the machine, and even what it means to be human and live a meaningful life. They’re all projects I’m very excited for (and I’m already seeing people connect with them, which is really encouraging). Outside of my personal projects, I’m proud of just about any work where I get to help people tell fun stories–animated or otherwise. Film is such a wonderful, collaborative medium and I’m so glad I get to be part of it.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I really struggled in middle school (who doesn’t, honestly?), so I really have a heart for that age range. I think it’s an important time to nurture creativity as well as offering sanctuary to kids who are struggling. I know I retreated a lot to books and TV shows like “Avatar: The Last Airbender” or “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” and they taught me a lot about life and hope when I was not doing the best mentally or socially. I love creating meaningful stories, and it’s my hope that I can create stories that have the same impact on someone as my favorite media had on me as a kid. Stories that make you think and start conversations, but that also leave a lasting legacy of joy and hope for a better world. Stories where it’s okay to be a kid, even if the world is moving just a bit too fast. I think that’s what I want my stories to become.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Seeing people respond to my work. And not with likes or shares on Instagram, but comments and messages saying they’re glad they’re not alone in their experiences or feelings. It makes my day when my art helps someone feel better, or when someone says that they revisit one of my pieces over and over because it speaks to them. It means a lot because there’s a lot of me in my work – a lot more than I like to admit sometimes, honestly – so to be able to use my own life experiences to give back to friends and strangers on the internet is really cool and incredibly rewarding. It feels like I’m really making a difference in the world.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://rachelmaxhuss.wixsite.com/spot-the-jay
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spot_the_jay/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-max-huss-b5a46319b/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@spot_the_jay

Image Credits
Victoria Marinova (image 1), Rachel Max Huss (2-9)