Childhood is a time when everything around us can be amazing and magical. This is because there are things we do not understand. As children we are in awe of life. The aspect of not understanding everything leaves us with a sense of wonder. We ask questions like what magic makes the sky a beautiful blue or are there beings in the sky that create the rain and the snow?  I know that these are the thoughts I had as a child and even after learning the truth I still believed in the magical experience of trying to understand the world. As a child, we can also dream big and we do not fear the limitations of our dreams. We believe it is possible to meld the world with our dream.

Flight of Fancy explores the idea of childhood and wonder. The process of creating this story starts with remembering aspects of my childhood and combining those memories with fragments with my adult inner child. The memories of the fictional worlds I created as a child combined with the real world that I observe through my niece, serve as the basis for my animation; a story of a child going on a pretend magical adventure. I want Flight of Fancy to provide an opportunity for an adult viewer like myself to experience a story that a child would also enjoy. Jean Piaget and his four stages of childhood development also served as inspiration. I focused on one of the stages in particular: the pre-operational stage. This stage is characterized as a time where children learn through their senses and apply what they learn to a more conceptual view. Object permanence and playing pretend are examples of activities that a child goes through during this stage. In my story the child goes into an imaginary journey created from one small ordinary instance: a hat being blown away by the wind.

I want Flight of Fancy to lure the viewer back into their childhood. By creating a sense of wonder with moving drawn images, I hope to create a visual space that allows someone to dream and play.