a Very Shaky Portrait

A Very Shaky Portrait

Bruce Von Stiers

Chase Olivera is a young adult animation filmmaker. So far, Olivera has an animated film about swashbucklers saving the earth, one about a cyborg afraid of the water and another about how Beethoven may have stolen his musical muse from birds.

Now Olivera has a brand-new animated film. This film deals with a dachshund and a chihuahua. The title of the film is The Chihuahua Shake. It is a short musical comedy with a runtime of about fourteen minutes. The film was produced by Olivera's company, Blue Phoenix Filmworks.

Olivera is currently a student at College of the Canyons in Valencia, California. As I mentioned earlier, he is a young filmmaker and animator. In fact, as of this writing, he is only 18 years old. Olivera started The Chihuahua Shake film when he was a Senior in high school and finished shortly after graduating.

Gianni is a Parisian dachshund whose owner recently passed away. He is trying to carry on the business that his owner had, painting portraits of animals. Things are going well. That is, until a lost chihuahua shows up. Gianni is going to paint the dog's portrait. But those plans go awry very quickly.

In real life, chihuahua's shake a lot. And in this film, the chihuahua most definitely shakes a lot. So much so, that Gianni can't paint a simple, beautiful portrait of the dog. The subject on the canvas seems to be shaking as well. There is comical mishap after mishap, as Gianni tries to paint that perfect portrait.

The film also features three street musicians. They have taken a liking to the chihuahua and try to help him out. As things move along, Gianni has stopped painting other subjects to get one just right of the chihuahua. Because of this, there is consternation from customers and art patrons. It also causes a cash flow problem, leading to an eviction notice. Gianni was well paid for his portraits, but when he stopped working, except for trying to paint the chihuahua portrait, he was going broke.

The three musicians that kept showing up in the film were Maurice (Giovanni Pucci), Antonio (Jonathan Nyberg), and Luciano (Jonathan Hartzendorf).

Olivera wrote the screenplay, produced and directed the film. He also oversaw the music for the film, which has some nice older style jazz riffs in it. The music in the film was accomplished by a twenty-piece orchestra along with a three-person choir.

The ending credits for the film listed Ellie Van Dyke as the inspiration for it.

The Chihuahua Shake is a cute and fun animated film. The characters are entertaining, and the animation is excellent. And there is a great graphic depiction of the Eiffel Tower in one scene. The story is appealing and there are a couple of surprises at the end that help tie everything together.

The Chihuahua Shake is a current submission for the 2024 Santa Clarita International Film Festival. The film is a selection for the Burbank International Film Festival. It will be a featured selection at Dances With Film on June 23 rd , 2024.

The film won Best Animation at the 2024 Fresh International Film Festival and has won both the Best Animation and Critic's Choice awards at the Montecito International Student Film Festival.

To learn more about The Chihuahua Shake and Chase Olivera, visit https://chaseolivera.wixsite.com/bluephoenixfilmworks

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