Set in the rural Midwest, “The Encounter” tells the story of a secret government agent who’s dead-set on finding proof of extraterrestrial existence in order to fit in with the other agents.
“(The main character) is really sort of a black sheep, and he really is desperate for the respect of his peers, and that is sort of the heart that drives the film,” DeCarlo said.
DeCarlo said he is in charge of writing, directing, producing and animating the short film, a task which he compares to a double-edged sword.
“It’s a fantastic way for me to create this whole vision I want out of this story and make sure all the different elements mesh, but it’s also a very quiet way to produce a movie,” he said.
DeCarlo said he has wanted to create a film of this style for a long time, but he needed designs for his characters.
While searching for stock models online, he encountered a design he said was a “goofy-looking young guy in like a nice black suit and an alien and its UFO,” which he found at TurboSquid.com, a website that specializes in selling stock models.
These became the models for the secret agent and Bobo, the alien, DeCarlo said.
Zachary Spicer, an IU alumnus who DeCarlo said went to high school with him, will star in “The Encounter” as the voice of the secret agent. However, DeCarlo said, “The Encounter” is not their first time working together.
During their college years, he and Spicer got together in the summer of 2003 to make their first feature film together, a project he said he remembered as being strenuous.
“Toward the end, he and I were basically sleeping in shifts and editing,” he said. “So one of us would sleep and the other would edit, and we would go back and forth until it was done.”
While that particular feature was live-action — and up until “The Encounter,” he said his background was in live-action film — DeCarlo said he would like to begin making feature-length animation films eventually.
Aaron Shafer, the official sound designer for “The Encounter,” said that prospect is very possible.
“He seems incredibly self-motivated, just the fact that he’s doing all the animations by himself,” he said.
As a student studying cinema and media arts through the Media School, Shafer has said he greatly admires DeCarlo.
“His artistic ability is unlike anything I have ever seen before,” Shafer said.
A self-proclaimed fan of Disney and Pixar, DeCarlo said “The Incredibles,” “Tangled” and “Big Hero 6” influence his work. He said he would be open to the idea of someday working for Pixar.
“My understanding is that (Pixar is) very roundtable ... and I think that is a fantastic approach,” he said.
DeCarlo said he would like to bring a prestigious and respected mindset among viewers in regards to short films, a quality he said he feels is seriously lacking in current movie-goers.
“I think short films are a way to compress a whole lot of meaning in a short amount of time, and if I can contribute to that and progress through that with my storytelling, then I would be achieving my goals,” he said.
