Pool Party is centered around three middle school girls as they attend their first boy-girl pool party. What should be considered the event of the summer turns out to be a nightmare for all three of them. The girls possess a fear that is all too familiar: wearing a swimsuit.

While Maxine obsesses over her stretch marks, Ruby is preoccupied with the scar across her stomach, and Lacy bemoans her flat chest. When Kyle (the most popular boy in 6th grade) shows up early, the girls must figure out a way to avoid the pool at all costs. This turns out to be quite the challenge as things quickly go awry. 

Despite what many may believe, animation is not a genre, but a medium that can contain an infinite number of stories, characters, and worlds. 

Enter Pool Party, an original short that captures the darkly comedic and oftentimes bizarre period of time that is the middle school experience. The film employs humor – both visual and verbal – to take viewers back in time, embracing embarrassment and nostalgia in equal measure. In doing so, Pool Party aims to prove that, in order to love who we are, we cannot hate the experiences that shaped us. 

A story about young women, developed by young women, Pool Party provides an antidote to the lack of animated content about middle school girls. By addressing themes such as growing up in the digital age, body image issues, sisterhood, and friendship, this animated short comes at a time when we are beginning to acknowledge the power that lies in our "cringeworthy" pasts, in addition to the plethora of narrative possibilities that exist within animation. 

Lily Riccio - Writer, Director, Producer

Lily Riccio is a multimedia storyteller studying Film & TV Production at the University of Southern California. This past year, she co-founded Pudding Cup Pictures after identifying an interest in the development of animated content. She hopes to write and direct animated movies, and in doing so, prove to audiences that animation is a medium which should be taken seriously.

Arianna Garcia - Producer

Arianna Garcia is a Film & Television Production Major at the USC School of Cinematic Arts who represents the best that this new generation of multimedia storytellers has to offer. After one too many childhood viewings of Coraline (2009), she identified a burgeoning passion for animation that inspired her to co-found Pudding Cup Pictures. In the future, she envisions herself working within the realm of creative production and telling compelling stories about the human experience. 

Hailey Hameetman - Character Designer

Hailey Hameetman is an artist, filmmaker and creative writer. She is currently studying animation and digital arts as an undergraduate at USC School of Cinematic Arts. When not making art, she loves going on walks with her dog, days at the beach and a good vanilla latte!

Mariel Jones - Lead Animator

Mariel Jones (she/they) is a recent graduate from the University of Southern California’s John C. Hench Division of Animation with a BA in Animation & Digital Arts and a minor in American Studies and Ethnicity. She was born and raised in rural Arizona as the youngest of three. Through years of schooling and self-study, she developed multiple skill sets within animation, most notably Storyboarding and 2D Character Animation. Her other interests include history, pirates, and learning the tin whistle.

Katie Moore - Storyboard Artist 

Katie Moore is an artist and storyboarder. She studies Cinema and Media Studies as well as Animation at USC School of Cinematic Arts. She is currently working in her animation thesis this semester and prepping her portfolio to enter the animation industry when she graduates in May.

Alison Ma - Background Artist

Alison Ma is an artist and musician studying at USC. They’ve worked on two student-led short films in the past year as a character designer and music composer and performer. In their free time, they enjoy creating fiber and textile art, watching video essays, and eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Over the past several months, our crew has been working to create Pool Party’s rough animation (also known as an animatic) so that we can begin production in August. Animation takes a whole lot of time, patience, and skill, so this budget will go to compensating our incredibly dedicated team. 

The journey isn’t over once we wrap up production in the fall! We plan to enter Pool Party into an array of festivals such as the Los Angeles Animation Festival, GLAS Animation Festival, LA Film Festival, and more. The money we raise will go towards these festival submission fees.

To support this project, please consider donating to this campaign and/or purchasing merchandise (stickers! postcards!) designed by our team.

To stay up to date with Pool Party’s progress, follow @puddingcuppictures on Instagram. We’ll be sharing sneak peeks of concept art, animated clips, and behind-the-scenes footage.