TEXTPOP, 2min., USA
Directed by Samantha Olschan
Textpop is an experimental short that explores visible language, neurodivergence, and constructed meaning, through an innovative blend of color, imagery, and typography—texts, phrases, direct messages, fragments, lists. The animation, shifting every 2-5 seconds, mirrors our contemporary attention spans influenced by technology. The film invites viewers to experience text as a material, reflecting on information construction, retention, and delivery. It is a fractured poem, which meditates on grief, perception, and meaning, created without storyboarding or previsualization. Each scene developed in a continuous, unedited flow borrowing from the process of direct filmmaking and cameraless animation. Textpop investigates the interplay between digital animation, motion design, and traditional experimental practices.

https://www.samanthaolschan.com/projects/textpop
https://www.instagram.com/samanthaolschan

Get to know the filmmaker:

1. What motivated you to make this film?

I started making this film coming out of the pandemic when the majority of our interactions were mediated through screens, type, technology, and boundaries between workspace and personal space became blurred. I was interested in the language we use to visualize our narratives, communicating through text is a visual and tactile experience, punctuated now by memes and gifs. I was also drawn to cataloging the language we created in that time/space, whether it is intentional (cultural significance, slang, generational), genetic or innate (neurodivergent processing establishing unique meaning), or accidental (autocorrect errors, misspelling, mispronunciation).

I initially wanted to experiment with new tools and techniques I was using for brand identity and motion design, but it later became an expressive response to grief, trauma, and increasing empathy for others through the words themselves. I was taking fragments of text messages, emails, and dm's from loved ones during this time, those I had lost physically or geographically, and those relationships where communication was failing or fractured. I wanted to see if there was a way to rewrite our narratives, imagine what their experience might be like, essential to take all the lemons and make lemonade.

I had also just produced another body of artwork, the $n@¢K/t!m£ series, a digital image series that overlaid conversations and dm's from texts and dating apps with classical sculptures and glitches, and wanted to flip that structure. By making the text the visual narrative and the visual elements the encoded language framework. I was curious what this could do to our brains and if it could activate a sense of synesthesia.

2. From the idea to the finished product, how long did it take for you to make this film?

Two years.

3. How would you describe your film in two words!?

Technical description: Experimental Animation

Sensory description: Vibrant Noise

Cultural Description: Goldfish Brain

4. What was the biggest obstacle you faced in completing this film?

Giving myself the freedom to create without structure. Filmmaking, animation, and motion design rely on pre-production and a series of steps along a pipeline. This was an experiment in applying artmaking and direct filmmaking processes to motion design and storytelling. No script, no style frames, no storyboards. And then surrendering it to the interpretation of the audience. It was like an experiment in digital-dada-surrealist-automatism for the NFT age. The film was created straight-ahead, not by scene or phrase, and the materials used were applied to the type and image like paint on a canvas, layering video, image, color and texture, rather than the traditional digital workflow of building a model, texting with a digital painting, animating and rendering. Some images are created using only digital techniques, some are created using analog techniques and photography, and others are a combination of the two. This gave it an uneven aesthetic that I think truly activates the brain and also captures the emotional landscapes of joy, confusion, and the fleeting nature of focus in our modern digital lives.

5. What were your initial reactions when watching the audience talking about your film in the feedback video?

First I want to thank the audience members who took the time to review and enjoy the film. It was wonderful to hear and see your interpretation of the film. I loved seeing their eyes widen as they spoke about the diversity in color, language, and images.

I was really excited to hear that the audience response to the speed of the visual narrative was not negative, which was something that worried me initially, and that the nature of our digital culture and attention spans came across clearly. I was also pleased to hear that the audience was curious about, but couldn't necessarily identify the "magic" that went into creating individual frames in the film. Film and animation at their core are about suspension of disbelief, the persistence of vision, and the brain seeking to make story and sense of the edit, so I was happy that the audience was actively wrapping their heads and hearts around what they had seen.

I think the audience reaction video brought up critical questions that I have always had in my work, which is: is it is art, a film, motion design? In my personal practice, I don't categorically silo what I've made by the media or visual outcome, which is a departure from how I might work in a professional freelance capacity or in a production pipeline.

6. When did you realize that you wanted to make films?

I think I always understood conjuring something from nothing, visualization, and cause and effect of artmaking from a young age. I remember watching two films as a child, Snow White(1937) and West Side Story(1961) as a child and being just amazed by the movement, color, and storytelling. In the 1990's the Walt Disney Animation Studios had an attraction at Disney World where you could watch animators drawing away in "the pit" (behind glass, how bizarre it seems now, like a zoo for artists!) but I have distinct memories of not wanting to leave. My whole life shifted when I realized single drawings can move over time, and I have been making art move ever since through film and animation.

I was introduced to conceptual art, video art, and animation when I attended Carnegie Mellon University, working with artists Suzie Silver, Lowry Burgess, Herb Olds, and Jim Duesing, and this led to getting my MFA at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, working with animators Chris Sullivan and Lisa Barcy. I was lucky to have this inspiring cohort of amazing filmmakers and artists including Jodie Mack, Adebukola Bodunrin, Kyung Woo Han, Jon Rafman, Lori Felker, Alexander Stewart, Lillie Carre, Lucas Dimick, and so many more. This network expanded my understanding of what filmmaking could be, and to create in these environments that challenged and supported my experimentation was such a gift and inspiration. I also realized that I wanted to make films after the first leg of my career as a broadcast designer for international news networks and marketing firms. Working in media and advertising had a huge impact on my trajectory both in my skill level and narratives.

7. What film have you seen the most in your life?

Too many to count! But probably the Back to the Future films, Harry Potter films, Indiana Jones films, and The Young Girls of Rochefort.

8. You submitted to the festival via FilmFreeway. How has your experiences been working on the festival platform site?

My experience has been good so far. It's been wonderful to find venues around teh world that are looking for experimental work like mine, that are outside of a traditional gallery setting.

9. What is your favorite meal?

Sushi ! Runner up: Spicy miso ramen

10. What is next for you? A new film?

I continue to explore and expand the boundaries of art, filmmaking, and design, fostering empathy, awareness, and critical conversations. I have two films that I'm working on right now- Everything Is Going So Well and Keep Running. Everything Is Going So Well animation and print series of 16 images. This experimental project explores interpretations of meaning versus message through illustrated responses to innocuous questions and casual conversation starters such as "How are you?" or "How is it going?" These responses are sourced from individuals grappling with mental health challenges and other non-visible disabilities. Keep Running, an animated short film based on the poem of the same name by actor Sterling Suliman, is a poignant response to the death of Ahmaud Arbery and the broader Black Lives Matter movement. By translating Suliman's powerful poem into an animated narrative, Keep Running seeks to evoke emotional resonance and provoke thoughtful dialogue about Black joy, Black history, racial injustice, and representation in film and animation.

Beyond Keep Running, I am committed to continuing my interdisciplinary creative practice and sharing more of my films and artwork at various festivals and conferences around the globe. In June of 2025, I will be a resident artist at the Skopelos Foundation for the Arts in Skopelos, Greece where I will focus on creating a new body of work that combines traditional artistic techniques with emerging mediums and fractured storytelling.