How This Filmmaker Built a Sundance Short with DIY Animation

Carter Amelia Davis' Homemade Gatorade is exactly the kind of funky, funny, dream-like YouTube video I like to stumble upon during a late-night scroll session. It's a video you feel like you're discovering or unearthing in its weirdness and hilarity—has anyone else seen this? I have to send it to someone.

And the Sundance programmers clearly felt the same way, because the short is part of this year's Midnight block.

Homemade Gatorade follows a woman trying to sell a creamy version (yes) of the sports drink online. When she has an interested buyer, she sets off on a late-night road trip to meet them, her journey punctuated by brief social media detours. I told Davis that the short somehow captures the manic nature of our online lives and how that can bleed into reality.

Davis is a self-taught animator based in Minneapolis who's been making these mixed-media videos for almost 10 years. She has a popular YouTube channel and a Patreon where faithful members (various "lump" tiers) support her work. Her creations are a great example of finding an audience and doing your work exactly the way you want to, using readily accessible tools and a unique creative spin that can take you all the way to one of the nation's biggest festivals.

No Film School chatted with Davis via email ahead of the fest to learn more about her process.

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NFS: What's your background as a filmmaker? How did you get into animation, and what led you to make your own short films?

Carter Amelia Davis: Writing was my main creative focus for a long time. I self-published a novel called Until You Continue To Behave in 2019, and in the process of writing it, I got kinda burnt out on words, so I shifted to making a lot of visual art. That led to me making rudimentary animated GIFs, then I started adding dialogue and music, and soon I was telling little stories in one-minute chunks. Making short films came about naturally as I kept increasing my ambition and trying to outdo myself.

NFS: You've described your short as being informed by your experience as a trans woman during the first four months of Trump's second term. How did you land on this specific concept and character?

CAD: It's stressful to be trans in America right now. It feels like the government is constantly trying to brainstorm new ways to antagonize us. Every other month congress is deliberating on a new bill that could ban gender affirming care. Everything feels precarious, and every trans person I know feels pretty pessimistic about where things are headed.

Outside of the 1%, it seems like the people who are really doing well under Trump 2.0 are the scammers, grifters, and huckster entrepreneurs. We hear about those who succeed, but what about the ones that fail? Daniella is an entrepreneur going all-in on trying to sell a deeply undesirable product (the titular creamy homemade Gatorade), and she's indignant about her lack of success. She'd rather embark on a late-night road trip across state lines at the behest of a weirdo on social media than admit that she's a failure.

Her journey into disillusionment was the perfect vehicle for me to explore how weird and bad life feels these days.

A clip from Homemade Gatorade by Carter Amelia Davis, an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

NFS: How do you approach the development of the story and script? Do you have any constraints you have to consider as an animator?

CAD: I want my stories to feel like dreams. I stumble upon an idea I really like and then I just keep asking myself what happens next. I prefer to not think about story structure too much when I'm writing; I find that too much rigidity kills my creativity. The story has to remain mysterious to me all the way through.

I operate under a lot of constraints. I do all the animating and editing by myself, so I'm always trying to find clever ways to save time and effort. I love working in my photo collage style, but it can make it challenging to render certain kinds of movements or to show a scene from multiple angles. I've had a lot of good ideas come from finding creative ways to cut corners.

NFS: What did your production timeline look like?

CAD: I wrote the film in January, and then animated from February to the end of May. I worked on the music with my friends Maddie and Park Zero, and my good friends Alosha, Spencer, and Connett sent me voice recordings of dialogue over Discord. My wife Lauren, voiced the main character. My friend Harlow made me a 3D animation of a video game dog.

Otherwise, the production was just me working alone in my room. I animate in a very linear, A to B kinda way—I never jump ahead in the story because I feel that each moment builds upon the last.

A still from Homemade Gatorade by Carter Amelia Davis, an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute

NFS: For filmmakers interested in mixed-media animation but intimidated by the process, what essential skills or tools would you say they need to get started?

CAD: I do most everything in Photoshop and After Effects. I collage stuff together in Photoshop and move it around in After Effects. Different layers in PS correspond to different frames of movement.

Maybe there's a better way to do it, I'm not sure. If you're intimidated by the process, just start with something small. It seems like a lot of people get burnt out trying to make something huge and impressive for their first project. I'd recommend just making something dinky that might make your friends laugh.

NFS: What advice would you give to other self-made animators trying to break into top-tier festivals like Sundance? Are there things you wish you'd known earlier in the process?

CAD: This is the first short film I've submitted to film fests. Normally, I just throw my work up onto YouTube and hope that people enjoy it, but this one got such a positive response that I felt like I needed to share it more widely. I don't know anything about how film festivals work. I didn't have any kind of strategy. I'm stupid!! Just kidding.

I guess my only advice is to make something that you love. I think the audience can tell whether the thing they're watching was made with joy and love and a clear vision. Don't compromise your vision for the taste of an imagined audience - they want to see what you want to see.

NFS: Do you have anything you'd like to add?

CAD: You can watch Homemade Gatorade and my previous short films, Cave video 1 and 2, on my YouTube! If you'd like to support me, all my work is funded via Patreon.