Blue.
Jeralyn Magantino & Kayla Cunanan
Duration: 4:24 min
Medium: 2D Digital Animation
Genre: Drama, Slice of life
Trailer
Logline
A year after Scarlet’s passing, Bea reflects on the night of her friend’s suicide.
Artist Statements
Jera
“Blue.” explores themes of memory, reflection, trauma, mental health, and navigating grief. This film initially started out as an idea for a visual novel game I had in mind back in 2023. Because of this, elements of the film were heavily inspired by game aesthetics, such as detailed backgrounds, narrative driven storyline and extensive text.
Music, Sound and color were a few of my biggest inspirations into bringing this film to life. My goal was to experiment and work in abstract ways to express emotion in the film through elements such as sound design, layout, compositing, lighting and color theme. The color blue is used to portray the main character Bea, while red represents the remnants of her friend. Another goal was to explore camera angle perspectives and editing to capture the mood and experience the characters go through in the film. I hope this film can resonate with others as this project has helped me express personal experience.
Kayla
In co-directing the film Blue (2025), my goal was to have a creative collaboration with Jeralyn Magantino, with whom I have a strong creative bond.
I loved the emotional depth of the story, especially with its focus on mental health awareness, something I’m passionate about. Plus, I really like the color blue—it sets the perfect tone for the mood of our story.
What I enjoyed most was discovering a new love for background illustration, and the important world-building and storytelling role of background art. Through learning new compositing skills using After Effects, I was able to elevate the film’s visual quality by exploring subtle color and lighting, which helped to make the aesthetic crisp and consistent throughout the film. This film rekindled my passion for animation and showed me how subtle, yet powerful acting choices can profoundly impact the story.
Production Stills
Credits
Directed By – Jeralyn Magantino & Kayla Cunanan
Music & Sound Design – Jeralyn Magantino
Environment Design – Kayla Cunanan
Character Design – Jeralyn Magantino
Visual Development – Heron Cheung, Kayla Cunanan, Cassandra Hay, Jeralyn Magantino, Eroniko Puevas
Storyboard Artists – Kayla Cunanan, Jeralyn Magantino
Layout Artist – Jeralyn Magantino
Background Illustration – Heron Cheung, Kaiden Cole, Kayla Cunanan, Jeralyn Magantino, Nico Santiago
Animation – Kayla Cunanan, Jeralyn Magantino
Assistant Animator – Journey Ee
Clean-up & Color Artists – Kayla Cunanan, Jeralyn Magantino
Compositing – Kayla Cunanan, Jeralyn Magantino
Production Manager – Jeralyn Magantino
Concept & Vis-Dev
Jeralyn Magantino
Born in raised in Canada, Jeralyn Magantino is a graduate of Emily Carr University of Art + Design who has received a Bachelor of Media Arts degree in 2D + Experimental Animation. With a strong interest to story tell in film & animation, Jeralyn has collaborated on various independent and student-led film projects, taking on various roles as script & continuity, sound design, music composition, vis-dev and project management. She is a co-director of the film Blue (2025)
Kayla Cunanan
Kayla Cunanan is a Canadian-born artist who is a recent graduate of Emily Carr University of Art + Design, where she received a Bachelor of Media Arts degree in 2D + Experimental Animation. She possesses a passion for visual design through background illustration, character design, and compositing. She has credit to several films contributing to background work, prop design and animation, and is co-director of the film Blue (2025).
Release Granted
