Clearfield man working on animated short about Underground Railroad
"Freedom Train" director Joe Dorsey listens as the Remnant Choir records music for his animated short about the Underground Railroad on Monday, Feb. 6, 2017, at New Hope Fellowship in Clearfield.
"Freedom Train" director Joe Dorsey listens as the Remnant Choir records music for his animated short about the Underground Railroad on Monday, Feb. 6, 2017, at New Hope Fellowship in Clearfield.
Sharia Yancey, of Syracuse, sings a solo with the Remnant Choir for "Freedom Train," an animation short about the Underground Railroad, on Monday, Feb. 6, 2017, at New Hope Fellowship in Clearfield. The short is directed by Joe Dorsey, of Clearfield.
Danyale Thomas, of Clinton, catches a few winks on the lap of Shundra Thomas before they record music with the Remnant Choir on Monday, Feb. 6, 2017, at New Hope Fellowship in Clearfield.
CLEARFIELD — It’s a Monday night at New Hope Fellowship in Clearfield, and a local gospel choir, Remnant, is recording music for the soundtrack of an animated short film.
Midway through the a cappella call-and-response spiritual “Hold On, Don’t Cry,” a cellphone rings.
The music — and the recording — grinds to a halt as sheepish choir members scramble for their phones in the coats and purses scattered on chairs behind them.
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BRIANA SCROGGINS/Standard-Examiner
The Remnant Choir records music for “Freedom Train,” an animation short about the Underground Railroad, directed by Joe Dorsey on Monday, Feb. 6, 2017, at New Hope Fellowship in Clearfield.
“Unless Jesus calls, turn it off,” booms Remnant director Marlon Thomas, eliciting laughter from the group.
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That brief interruption turns out to be the only glitch in the evening’s recording session. After “Hold On, Don’t Cry,” the group flawlessly records a second song — the traditional spiritual “Wade in the Water” — before calling it a night.
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As he packs up his recording equipment, Joe Dorsey turns to the choir.
“Thank you so much,” he says. “This is a dream-come-true.”
That dream is another piece of “Freedom Train,” a three- to five-minute animation project Dorsey wrote and is currently directing. The two songs — along with a third that Dorsey will perform solo — will be used in the animated short.
While his day job is in the transportation department of Packsize, a Holladay, Utah-based on-demand packaging company, the 51-year-old Clearfield man’s true passion is animation.
Dorsey grew up in Idaho, and moved to Utah a little over a decade ago. He spent two years studying animation at Davis Applied Technology College in Kaysville and has been dabbling in it ever since.
“I really like to write,” Dorsey says of the creative process, “and I found out these short stories just kept coming to me.”
One of those stories, “Freedom Train,” is about a slave family’s journey north on the Underground Railroad in the 19th Century. It’s one of Dorsey’s favorites, and he’d hoped to turn it into an animated short.
“But it was too big to do on my own,” he said.
A virtual studio
Enter Artella.com.
Artella is a virtual-studio website that allows animators anywhere to collaborate on and create everything from films to video games to virtual reality projects. The website was started by Bobby Beck, an ex-Pixar Animation Studios guy who co-founded the online school Animation Mentor.
“When Artella came along, it offered me the resources to get my project out there,” Dorsey said. “I can’t pay anybody to do this, so it’s all volunteer.”
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Photo supplied/Joe Dorsey
This storyboard — created by Jason Lee, of Hayward, California — is part of an animated short film project, “Freedom Train,” written and directed by Joe Dorsey, of Clearfield.
Thus far, Dorsey has about 38 people — from Canada, Kenya, India and other parts of the world — working on the project with him. His team includes 18 animators, nine character designers, four lighting technicians, five modelers, a rigger and a storyboard artist.
“I’ve got a lot of people from Latin America and Spain working on it,” he said.
Every Sunday, Dorsey holds two hour-long conference-call meetings via Skype to discuss the project — one at 6 a.m. (for his overseas collaborators) and one at 5 p.m. (for those in the Americas). During the week he then squeezes in time, usually early in the morning, to work on storyboarding, answer emails and otherwise run his tiny “virtual animation studio.”
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Photo supplied/Joe Dorsey
This concept art sketch — created by Juan Rico, of Armenia, Colombia — is part of an animated short film project, “Freedom Train,” written and directed by Joe Dorsey, of Clearfield.
“It’s like my second job,” Dorsey said of the project. “It takes a lot of time.”
The Underground Railroad
Dorsey came up with the idea for “Freedom Train” from a traditional spiritual song, “I Want Jesus to Walk With Me.” He learned the song back when he was in U.S. Army basic training at Fort Dix, in New Jersey, and fell in love with it.
Years later, he thought about how he might incorporate the song into an animation project.
“I thought about the Underground Railroad, and how maybe I could create something from that,” he said. “I did some research about how people were rescued through the Underground Railroad and thought I’d do it with anthropomorphic characters.”
The animated short film will tell the story of a slave family being tracked by a slave hunter. An ex-slave eventually helps rescue the family. All of the characters in the short are animals.
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Photo supplied/Joe Dorsey
This drawing of “Mother Slave” — created by Laura Valencia, of Guadalajara, Mexico — is part of an animated short film project, “Freedom Train,” written and directed by Joe Dorsey, of Clearfield.
Why use imaginary anthropomorphic characters — dogs, alligators, a wolf and a raccoon — to tell the story of the very real Underground Railroad?
“What I wanted to do was create something that was universal,” Dorsey said. “I wanted to get at the universal idea of slavery. And usually, using anthropomorphic characters makes it more accessible.”
Dorsey says “Freedom Train” is about 10 percent complete, and right now his team is in the character-design phase. Dorsey says animation is an extremely labor-intensive process; he figures it’ll take another couple of years to complete the project.
Adding music
Remnant director Thomas, who is the worship leader at New Hope Fellowship, says the group was excited to be a part of the project. Remnant consists of singers from a handful of churches in Davis and Weber counties, and about 10 of the group’s singers participated on the recording for “Freedom Train.”
“This group was a dream of mine,” Thomas said of Remnant, which was organized in 2015. “I’ve been talking and talking and talking for a long time about getting different people from churches to participate in a group like this.”
Story continues below photo.
BRIANA SCROGGINS/Standard-Examiner
“Freedom Train” director Joe Dorsey listens as the Remnant Choir records music for his animated short about the Underground Railroad on Monday, Feb. 6, 2017, at New Hope Fellowship in Clearfield.
Dorsey said Remnant’s contributions to the animation project can’t be overstated.
“They’re a great choir,” he said. “It’s an amazing thing to hear a song you’ve written performed so beautifully by a gospel choir.”
’Treading new ground'
Dorsey’s goal is to eventually do filmmaking full time. He’s got feature film ideas for both animation and live action and says he’d like to move forward with those plans.
“But I have to first prove myself as a director and filmmaker, and this is the start of that,” he said.
Dorsey said the way Artella allows animators to collaborate is “treading new ground in how animation in general is made.” Large studios might use three or four satellite studios to get their projects created, but the idea of a crew from all over the world, working together online, is a bit newer, according to Dorsey.
“It’s overwhelming,” he said. “And the fact that this is all done with zero budget? Everyone is doing this out of the kindness of their hearts, and they believe in this story. Knowing people all over the world are working on it and believe in what I’m doing is amazing. I’m just a guy in Utah who loves animation.”
Contact Mark Saal at 801-625-4272 or msaal@standard.net. Follow him on Twitter at @Saalman. Friend him on Facebook at facebook.com/MarkSaal.
