In many ways I think of life as the ongoing collecting of great stories. In turn I often think of my own films as a way of telling my stories, whether exactly as they happened, or re-imagined entirely. So as far from my day to day life I try to get, I think somehow it always says as much about the story teller as it does the characters. I am glad for that.

I wanted to forgo simple slapstick humor and let the romance bloom like it would in everyday life. Characters fall in love quickly and sometimes awkwardly, and sometimes for the silliest of reasons. Seemingly random but personally important little things interest them in one another, not cataclysmic events. Hopefully the laughs come subtly from their very human responses to remarkable events.

I used visuals that reflected the light-hearted nature of the story and the sheer wonder of its context. I spent the several years preceding production developing the animation software and techniques we used to make Mars, and I hope they are both dreamy and concrete – falling half way between an old hand-colored photograph and the paper pages of a graphic novel.

This being my first feature film, I also want to express how honored I am to have been given the chance to make this film by all the people who worked with me on this. Animation is hard. We had to make these visuals on a micro budget. A few of us working out of living rooms and old hangers in the middle of the night in the middle of Texas made this film with a fraction of the team and resources even the other independent animated films use. I couldn't be prouder of them.