Melinda Kádár | animation director

CUB Animation
Project facts

Be Still My Heart
Status: In development
Synopsis: Dressed in the garments of abstract animation, the film takes
us on a sensual journey into the depths of the wounded heart, to find the last • Given the abstract nature of the film, the animatic can only
spark of love there, and turn it into a fire again. And again, and again. be developed simultaneously with the visuals — I will be working on these at
the Open Workshop in Viborg from January until the end of March 2024
Format: Animated short
Duration: 6-7’
Genre: Experimental Budget: €54,000
Technique: Digital hand-drawn 2D
Target audience: Young adult, Adult Schedule: Once the animatic and color script are finished, production
for me is a well established process of animating the shot, oftentimes straight
ahead, then cleaning, coloring, and compositing it all in one go, before moving
Directed by: Melinda Kádár on to the next shot. It is a tedious process but one that still progresses rather
Produced by: CUB Animation quickly since I control every aspect of it. We estimate production to last around
10 months.

Melinda Kádár | animation director Be Still My Heart | animated short

CUB Animation
Director’s note

In my previous film, The Wellspring and the Tower, I strikes a female chest. We only see the chest for For a moment it is pitch black, then gradually the
wanted to see whether it was possible for me to tell a a split second before it breaks down into abstract outlines of an enormous, churchlike space start to
story without characters, through the landscape and shapes, which fall onto the plane beneath it. The emerge, where the shapes of the previous levels are
the flora alone. Now I want to achieve a higher level arrow and the wound remain in place, and we follow petrified into icons. At the very end of the space,
of abstraction, so perhaps the film is most readily the camera into the wound, to the second level. on a shrine-like platform, we see the abstract shapes
compared to a piece of symphonic music — it has a Here we see the first expressions of fulfilled love, the female chest fell apart into, and the wound. This
narrative and an emotional arc, but it hasn’t got any where the abstract shapes, like puzzle pieces, is the level of solitude, quiet reflection, humbling
traditional characters, dialogue, or narration. meet each other first hesitantly, then with growing insight. The camera approaches the wound slowly,
enthusiasm. But their movement gradually becomes taking in the stillness of the icons as it passes them
The film has four levels, nested within each other, monotonous, and this makes the image start to by. When it reaches the shrine it silently stops. In the
and the last one returns us to the first. The film crackle, revealing the third level beneath it. silence first there is a kind of visual temper tantrum,
loops around, but as viewers we don’t know this at a last expression of the frustration of having failed,
first. We believe we are witnessing a linear process, Here we have a more mature form of love, where then the wound bursts into flame, which in turn
about the awakening of desire, the attempts to communication takes center stage: the shapes are floods the image in an orangish-reddish light, which
fulfill it, then its fulfillment, and decline, but at the more complex, they either contort themselves into makes the straight edges of the space distort into
end we are confronted with the film’s thesis: that new forms, send out cables or smoke signals to reach soft arches. The flame expands from the center into
desire, its cause and its object are parts of the same out to one another. But in their complexity it is harder all directions, growing ever larger, until it covers the
continuum, eternally chasing each other. to fit together like puzzles, and one frustrated shape entire image, its details ever finer, until only its middle
On the first level we find a small dot in an endless bursts into flame, fuming black and burning a hole is radiating, and we find ourselves at the beginning
pinkish-orange space, radiating with white heat. The into the very fabric of the image, thus revealing the of the film.
dot turns into an arrow, gets pulled, flies out, and fourth, and deepest level.

Melinda Kádár | animation director Be Still My Heart | animated short

CUB Animation
Script

The only solution to longing for union is union with the shapes. The forms fall on a flat surface. The wound it as we zoom out. When it dries out and becomes
longing itself caused by the arrow and the blood splattered on the crumbly, it begins to fall off like plaster, revealing
picture, however, remain. The wound comes to life, what is behind it.
Level 1 — Wound deep blue petals begin to emerge from it, covering
We start with fog. Like when you can’t see where the bloodstain as well, coming towards us, inviting Level 3 — Math
the earth ends and the sky begins from the airplane us into the wound. Empty space. There’s nothing but each other. The
window. The sound is a fading wall of sound, pulsating very first feeling here is shame. The feeling of standing
at a slightly different pace in the left and right Level 2 — Flesh naked in front of each other, as three dimensional
channels. In the middle, a fine white line spells out: We are inside. It’s raw and playful. Heightened objects. It is not enough to connect in the flesh, it is
BE STILL. This then morphs into a rotating square, sensuality, swelling, provocation, but there is also also necessary in abstraction. It is more complex in
flips over, and becomes a triangle. The triangle slides some awkwardness. We don’t yet know what forces terms of material than the previous level, it requires
downwards out of the picture, returning as a bow we are playing with, but this is the visceral reaction haptic images, glass and artificial leather and velvet
and arrow seen from a POV camera angle. Faintly after a wound. The fertility of spring combined and tulle. Shapes push and feel, communicate with
we hear a heartbeat. with the uncompromising power of necessity. At each other with smoke signals and wires. The figures
the beginning, things look for each other, they come do not represent people, but rather personified
The arrow retracts, is released, flies at blinding speed, together like a gentle puzzle, they pet and squeeze feelings and sensations. There are gentler gestures,
slams into a naked woman’s chest. Blood splatters each other, but after a while, this game becomes there are also very mathematical ones. There is
onto the picture as if it were a glass wall. The impact overstimulated, over-intensified. The soft becomes a growing pressure, a hissing, a desire to unravel,
is followed by a small groan, and then with a jump the wet, slippery, crowded, the movement becomes which cannot be fulfilled here, just like in the flesh.
cut, the female figure disintegrates into abstract monotonous and hasty, and the image dries up with The hissing leads to an ignition, a meltdown - a figure

Melinda Kádár | animation director Be Still My Heart | animated short

CUB Animation
Script

burns with thick, black smoke, with an angry intensity, is consumed in the flame. Even in such a small space,
so much so that it burns a hole in the picture the flame illuminates the space. Its light is orange-
red, and wherever it falls, the space softens, the
Level 4 — Nigredo straight lines, right angles, and curves bend. It burns
The holy altar. Black and motionless. Terrible silence. uncertainly. We cut to a full shot, it is still uncertain
From a super wide shot, we slowly start to approach for a while, then it stabilizes, ripples, and starts to
the altar. As the camera advances, on either side we grow. The camera moves further and further away
see the figures of the previous levels, they too are to capture it, its details become smaller and smaller,
black and motionless, like holy images in a church. On it grows larger and larger, until it merges with its
the altar are the abstract forms into which the female surroundings, there is no longer an altar or space,
figure had fell apart, and the deep blue petals fallen only the fire, which burns pulsating with a pearlescent
and dried up. The wound hovers above them. The color, accompanied by a rising wall of sound..
camera stops here, there is a mounting tension in the
silence. A very intense quick animation follows, like a Slowly, imperceptibly, the fire begins to fade. Its
tantrum: contorting shapes, colors that don’t match outlines are blurred until it is absorbed into the mist.
the scene, flickering, jittering, agitation, then it’s over A square, a triangle, the arrow flies out, and instead
before we even had a chance to comprehend. In of another impact: MY HEART.
this new silence, the heartbeat from the beginning
returns. Then, like when a draft blows out a candle, The entire canvas is covered by the two words,
the wound ignites with a small, opalescent flame, and tingling, restless, overflowing with energy.

Melinda Kádár | animation director Be Still My Heart | animated short

CUB Animation
Director’s statement

“Tell me what you long for and I’ll tell you who you the external world where it is found? These are the this longing. But all around me I am noticing others
are.”— James Hillman’s quote really struck me the questions my film became centered around. grappling with these very same issues. I have not
first time I heard it. It felt like finally someone had The film is experimental insofar as it strays from a yet turned my leaden longings into gold, and this
articulated a feeling I had been carrying, we had conventional visual and narrative structure, but still film cannot do that either — but if it shines bright
all been carrying all along. Longing, yearning, is the functions as a film: it has a thread of causality, it tells enough, it can be a beacon to let others know their
primary activity of the soul. Following the end of a a story, conveys emotions, and does these using a struggles are not in vain, a lighthouse to guide those
long-term relationship, it became painfully obvious highly polished visual style. lost at sea back to the shores of their own heart.
to me that the object of my most ardent desire
and longing is that of romantic love fulfilled, and a In my previous film, The Wellspring and The Tower,
most idealized version of it at that. I felt as if only we were witnessing the struggle of the ecosystem
this were able to complete me, and in chasing this itself, its flora and its landscape. Here I want to lean
ideal, I — of course — heaped one disappointment into the abstraction even more, and bring our inner
upon another. This process of trial and error started landscapes out — to have sensations, emotions,
to resemble that of alchemy: how does lead turn hidden desires be the ones that inhabit the screen,
into gold, and how does disappointment become and contort and overstretch themselves in their
knowing? And what happens when — unwittingly hopes to get closer to their Beloved.
— we turn away from wanting to fulfill the desire
and towards getting to know it? And finally: what if When the idea of this film came to me I burned with
we come to realize that the object of our longing impatient, even vindictive desire — now I’ve cooled
isn’t found in the external world, or rather, it’s not down somewhat, and strive each day to befriend

Melinda Kádár | animation director Be Still My Heart | animated short

CUB Animation
Visual research – Character designs

Melinda Kádár | animation director Be Still My Heart | animated short

CUB Animation
Visual research – Character designs

Melinda Kádár | animation director Be Still My Heart | animated short

CUB Animation
Visual research – Color and motion tests

These animations are not actually part of the film, they are just visual research for me to learn about
how much I can do with animated lighting, textures, what kind of movement I want, etc. As such, the
teaser only teases an atmosphere, and not the actual film.

Watch the teaser here

Melinda Kádár | animation director Be Still My Heart | animated short

CUB Animation
A note on sound

It is the stated goal of the film to be a sensual and partnership spanning well over a decade, and he has
sensory experience, and to induce the viewers into been with this project since its conception. Both the
a hypnotic, trance-like state. To this end, sound is sound design and the music that József creates is
of cardinal importance in the film: it grounds the highly polished, and he has a great understanding
abstract images, giving them a sense of physicality of the abstraction I employ, often enhancing it with
and weight, while at the same time enhancing his own personal flavor of abstraction. To see an
that sense of altered perception that the images example of our previous collaboration, please refer
propose. Sound also does some heavy lifting around to my graduation film.
understanding the emotions animating each given
scene.
To put it in more concrete terms, I would like the
soundtrack of the film to feature a multitude of Watch my graduation film here
different techniques that trick our brain into second
guessing itself, ranging from something as simple as
repetition, to more advanced forms, like binaural
beats, drones, phase shifting, or sub-basses.

For this task we have brought József Iszlai onboard,

a highly sensitive and very crafty musician and sound
designer. József and I share a friendship and creative

Melinda Kádár | animation director Be Still My Heart | animated short

CUB Animation
 Bella Szederkényi Melinda Kádár
Producer Director

cubanimation.com melindakadar.com
@cubanimation @melindeer

Melinda Kádár | animation director Be Still My Heart | animated short

CUB Animation