DIRECTOR STATEMENT
As much as I want to make you laugh, I want to make you cry. To me, making the audience experience the emotions of the character on the screen is the most important part of filmmaking. Whether it’s through comical characters with funny animation or gut wrenching tales told by more developed characters, I make my films to impact the lives of my audience, not just to entertain in the moment. My inspirations come from early 2000s cartoons from Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, and my goal is to make work that holds a special place in the hearts of my audience, just as those old cartoons did for me.

I gravitated to animation as my medium because it lets the audience fill in the blanks. A simple expression could mean something different to each viewer. The further it is from reality, the deeper the audience can interpret my work. With animation and its endless amount of styles, I can create windows to my own worlds for everyone to experience.

When I decided to make House Rules, I wanted to create a window into my childhood, but telling this story from my current adult perspective. When I was very young, I was convinced my house was haunted and I made rules for myself to follow very loosely, especially after the sun went down. Based on the weird noises I’d always hear and the various pieces of art hung in the hallways, I built a library of rules that I wouldn’t dare tell anyone else. In this film, I wanted to show what happens when those rules are broken. If these rules could be followed by the child who thought them up, an adult would be able to follow the rules without fail, right? I guess we’ll find out…

DIRECTOR BIO
Amandeep Singh is an animator and filmmaker who focuses on creating pieces that have the classic Cartoon Network type humor with a postmodern twist.

Amandeep grew up in Hopkinton, MA and always had special place for cartoons and storytelling in his heart. A programmer and financial data analyst in his past life with filmmaking constantly on his mind, Amandeep made the leap to pursuing animation as his main career by enrolling in the Film and Animation MFA program at RIT, concentrating in 2D Animation.

In the first year of the program, he made his first film, Baking Bad, a 30-second short that was selected for the “RIT Best Student Films” Showcase, screened in the Dryden Theater at the Eastman Museum. Amandeep just finished making two films in the past semester, and is excited to start preparing for his next big project, a thesis film for the MFA program at RIT.