The Stonecutter is an animated film based upon a Japanese folktale. it is the story of a poor stonecutter who is granted the ability to change into anything he desires.

the finished animation will utilze 3-d characters created in Maya and 2-d digital background paintings by Jason Cheeseman-Meyer based upon the illustrations of Hokusai and Hiroshige.

The Stonecutter is a thesis film for The University of Southern California's Division of Animation and Digital Arts.

there will be no dialog or music in the film. the sound design is entirely environmental.

the project is rendered at a resolution of 1920x1080 and will be mastered on digibeta.

it is intended to appeal to a very broad audience but will hopefully find success as a children's film.

animation was done with Alias Maya. paintings were created in Adobe Photoshop and all editing was done with Adobe After Effects.