The SVA Alumni Society announced its 2022 Alumni Scholarship Award winners earlier this year, with 67 SVA students receiving $52,500 in scholarships to support the completion of their original thesis projects. Funding for the Alumni Scholarship Awards is provided through the SVA Alumni Society’s annual Support the Talent campaign; 100% of all donations go directly to students. In recent weeks, we have been highlighting some of the many outstanding projects from these Alumni Scholarship Award winners.

Today’s featured thesis project is by fourth-year BFA Animation student Ashley Lee, an animator, storyboard artist and character designer who has previously worked at Sesame Workshop and produced numerous animated shorts. Her animated thesis film, The Five-Leaf Clover, is about a girl named Kaya who finds a five-leaf clover that grants magical wishes.

Lee recently answered some questions about her thesis project and experience at SVA.

Tell us about your project. What inspired the idea?

My thesis film was inspired by my own experience of finding a five-leaf clover when I was little. I was trying to find four-leaf clovers in a field of clovers and was shocked to find a five-leaf clover. I had no clue that they existed until that point and learned how rare it was to find one. Additionally, the main conflict of my film was influenced by what it will feel like to finally graduate and slowly stop seeing the faces of some friends at SVA as they leave the city to pursue their passions.

What most surprised you once you started working on the project?

I was shocked to find out what I could do by myself when working on this film. At first, I thought that my film was too ambitious of an idea as I had to incorporate rain animation and have it stop in time. However, I found out that it could easily be done by using what I learned from previous SVA classes. I successfully created an animation test with the rain effects to make sure it was feasible.

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