Famed Broadway writer, director and composer Elizabeth Swados has struggled with depression her whole life. In My Depression (The Up and Down of It), she shares her experiences with this often-misunderstood condition to make a difficult and sometimes taboo topic more accessible and understandable. The documentary is based on Swados’ graphic memoir "My Depression: A Picture Book."
David Wachtenheim and Robert Marianetti had a longtime New York City animation studio, Wachtenheim/Marianetti. We knew one another socially and when they were awarded HBO’s My Depression (The Up and Down of It) by Elizabeth Swados, they asked me if Rick Broas and I could help out in the animation department. They were producing this in Flash in 2014 and I had forgotten how buggy and unforgiving that program was with drawn animation (having switched to Toonboom back in 2012). But David’s beautiful layouts and clever timing made the project a lot of fun.
Please watch the film-- Rick and I just animated sections of it.