January 29th, 2021 
Jackson Murphy 
Michaela Mihalyi and David Stumpf are the directors of the wild animated short film with a memorable title: Sh_t Happens. After successful Sundance and Venice showings, this saga of a man, his wife, a deer and the terrible things that can happen in the average day, is vying for Oscar and Annie Awards consideration. Mihalyi and Stumpf share some behind the scenes details that are far from… sh_t. (This interview was conducted as an Email Q&A.)
Jackson Murphy: It’s SUCH a unique animated short. What are the origins of the story?
David Stumpf: Oh! Thank you very much!
Michaela Mihalyi: Yes indeed! Well, the first idea was to make a story about difficulties of cohabitation in the apartment buildings. They can be bizarre sometimes… It was supposed to be a treatment for my bachelor movie back in 2013. Our dramaturgy teacher at school Patrik Pašš ml. had a suggestion to use all the themes and put them into one biblical storyline… I won’t spoil which one 🙂
DS: Yes! I thought that it would work perfectly and that it was an interesting treatment to play around with… Michaela has never finished her bachelor film at that school, but we have decided to develop the idea further together and we took a year off the school to focus on writing the script.
JM: Did you always know how you wanted to set-up the structure – and did you experience challenges while creating the timeline of the story?
DS: No, we didn’t know at all! It evolved very organically. When we realized that we can’t tell all the things we want in linear storytelling, we started to think about non-linear narrative a lot. We love scripts that are playful with the timeline, so we kind of started to go that direction.
MM: The writing process took us 5+ years, so it has changed a lot since the beginning. Everything was a challenge I guess. We didn’t know how to write at all when we started. We were very inexperienced. But later on, step by step we started to understand a bit more. We have been watching loads of films with non-linear structure, and we analyzed them one by one. We wrote down the timelines for some films, so we could understand how to work with the information in the script. Also learning how to remove and select ideas was the biggest challenge!
JM: When something goes wrong (a.k.a. when sh_t really does happen), how do you usually react?
MM: We panic! A lot. But one of us always has a better view of the situation than the other, so we help each other panic a bit less.
DS: We drink! Haha.
JM: How did you decide on which animals to use as characters?
DS: Well it was really hard to decide. We wanted to use more, but there was not enough time and space in the story to develop more characters.
MM: The building and furniture in the flats are inspired by the Eastern Europe apartment buildings that we grew up in. That’s why we also wanted to use the animals as tenants that live in our East European area as well as mostly farm animals. We felt that it would be a connection with our experiences.
JM: What was the process of deciding the colors to use for specific characters and backgrounds?
DS: Well for designs we used the printing technique called risography, in theory very similar to silkscreen but it has its own printing machine. So all the backgrounds are printed on paper and scanned back to the computer. Animation is postproduced to match the colors and textures of the prints.
MM: Risography itself has a very vibrant and specific color scheme that we loved for a long time. So we have decided to use a limited color scheme of five colors that fit together. We used them to match the main colors with the main characters. Every chapter has its character and a dominant color.
JM: What do you like most about the techno/futuristic music you incorporate?
MM: Well we love electronic music in general! And we wanted to have something electronic and a bit disco influenced to create a contrast between the theme of the story and the mood. Something like crying while dancing- something very bittersweet!
DS: Also we wanted a very contemporary feel to the music part of the film. To avoid musical score, but to create a soundtrack with specific songs that helps you connect the dots of the story. Olivier De Palma, who did the music for the film, has captured it perfectly!
JM: You wore shirts of the characters to the Venice Film Festival screening of the film?! That’s awesome. How did you get those shirts made and what was that experience like?
DS: Oh, thank you! Well we love to dress up, so when we have the occasion or some event connected to film we love to do it every time. And the experience was AMAZING!
MM: Well I love dressing up and making clothes in general, so it is a fun part for me! I have prepared the designs for fabric, we printed it and me and my mum have made the clothes. We have a bunch of them, for different screenings, haha. I love to do it! 🙂
JM: What would a nomination in the Oscar and Annie Awards Animated Short Film categories mean to you?
MM & DS: Oh! A lot! But at the same time, we understand the process and the amount of great short films each year, so every time it is a surprise! So we will see 🙂
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