Miranda Richmond

Biography

Miranda Richmond is an animator, filmmaker, and writer born and raised in Los Angeles, California. Richmond utilizes a wide breadth of techniques, including stop-motion, hand-drawing, and a variety of digital tools to create character-driven narratives. Her work uses vibrant color, sound, and humor to explore a wide breadth of subjects including family, solitude, and mundanity.
 

Artist Statement

The Third Floor is an animated short film centered on events occurring simultaneously in the third-floor apartments of a building. Each part, titled 3A, 3B, and 3C, inspects a different apartment that houses a unique character vignette exploring loneliness, loss, and acceptance in alternate forms. The three narratives draw on Richmond’s personal and familial history in order to discuss the processing of grief, self-image, and isolation through humorous character studies. 

3A focuses on a dismaying cyclops attempting to enjoy the sun, but plagued by two-eyed sunglasses. Something shifts when he ingests a mysterious substance that has dripped onto his bowl of chips, and he begins to find the joy in his uniqueness. 3B follows an oozing, anxiety-prone being coping with a recent loss through avoidant behavior. However, he is physically confronted with his memories in the form of a growing and inescapable substance living in his refrigerator. In 3C, the source of the catalytic substances is discovered to be emanating from a bathroom-laboratory of the resident of 3C. A spritely yet fearful being so petrified of solitude that she is brewing potions in the bathtub to manufacture companionship. However, when faced with a power outage, the fear of silence and loneliness becomes too consuming to ignore. This film delves into Richmond’s personal process of finding humor and comfort when faced with loss and fear. As the tales intertwine, the contradictions and complexities of coexisting with other characters, internally and externally, create a cyclical narrative of the absurdity in the everyday.