Matthew Toffolo chats with Kelly O'Connor about her animated short film "A Bigfoot Christmas," which was created as a thesis project during a four-year Bachelor's of Fine Arts program in computer animation at Ringling College of Art and Design. Kelly wrote and directed the 2-minute parody film, which satirizes Hallmark Christmas movies by featuring Bigfoot as the romantic lead instead of a human male character. The film won Best Micro Short at the Toronto Comedy Short Film Festival and has been accepted at multiple festivals. Kelly explained the creative process, including the challenges of balancing comedy with character development, the design choices for Bigfoot to make him lovable rather than scary, and the decision to contract out only sound design, composing, and voice acting while handling all other aspects of production herself. The conversation also covered Kelly's transition from Philadelphia to Florida for college, her current freelancing work in multimedia animation, and her perspective on AI in animation education, noting that her program strictly prohibited the use of generative AI in student projects due to copyright concerns.

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