Solace is a short film about a lonely monarch seeking inspiration. The simple story takes place in  a sort of post-apocalyptic desert world. The main and only character is a regal looking mechanical creature who walks alone through his castle and kingdom searching for the subject of his next painting.
     Solace was made with photographs treated in Adobe PhotoShop, arranged in Macromedia Flash, and compiled in Final Cut Pro. Not quite computer animation as we've come to think of it, itís an experimental collage of images, found and original, that attempts to mimic an actual, coherent environment. Nothing the audience sees is quite "real" anymore, but instead consists of a character moving on digital "sets" that are pieced together from manipulated photographic stills. Itís all an attempt to, if not actually fool you into thinking what youíre seeing is real, at least make it seem plausible. The process took about eight months.

     It should also be noted that Solace is actually a tiny excerpt from a much larger story involving many characters, an entire society of these mechanical creatures, as well as a few humans. This race of machines has inherited the Earth from mankind as we eventually stopped taking care of it, effectively destroying ourselves. Many millennia have passed and the machines have long since reached the apex of their evolution and have become stagnant as a species. This ruler is grappling with both the growing unrest among his subjects and the upbringing of his adopted human son. More of this story would be revealed in subsequent shorts.