Endless Cookie is an animated feature documentary from Seth and Peter Scriver. The project explores the complex bond between half brothers — one Indigenous, one white — who travel from the present, in isolated Shamattawa, to bustling 1980s Toronto.
Endless Cookie is comprised of a series of vignettes and makes use of a handcrafted animation style. The piece is rooted in an Indigenous resistance to colonialism and features a voice cast that includes Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, William H. Macy and Kerry Condon. Sydney Cowper edited the documentary, having worked with the producers a number of times in the past.
“Endless Cookie had a pretty complex post workflow that required someone who was familiar with the more technical aspects of post production,” she explains. “I had a lot of experience in that realm, and I came on-board originally for six months, just to help get the animation out of Adobe Animate and the sound out of Adobe Audition/Logic Pro, and laid out into Adobe Premiere. One thing led to the next, and I found myself really loving the project. I came on-board as picture editor very quickly and have been with the project for over three years until we finished.”
Cowper (pictured) says she worked closely with director/animator Seth Scriver and producer Alex Ordanis.
“Due to the nature of the project, we came up with our own workflow for data management and onlining to the 4K masters, which left us with virtually no need for a picture turnover when we locked the film,” she explains. “We took advantage of Dropbox as a server and chose Adobe
Premiere for its data management systems to achieve this.”
The film is structured around one scene in which the main character is trying to tell a trapping/hunting story while being interrupted and side tracked by other characters and wild stories.
“The challenge was weaving many narratives together, jumping back and forth in time, and moving the story forward in the trapping scene while trying to keep the audience grounded and following along,” Cowber shares.