Memory Box | Surreal Animated Short

Myra and Galen, two young adults, cope with their drug addiction through willful ignorance; however, the reality of their situation begins to unfold, tainting Myra's childhood memories.

This film was a huge labor of love from me and my film crew. I hope to humanize those with drug addiction through this film. This is my SVA thesis film written, directed, animated, and designed by me, Emmy Stork.

You can also find me on my non professional art Twitter and Instagram accounts @Horrorhippies

My Film Crew Contact:

[neccodealer]

I feel like her “worst trip” is Myra pretending Galen dying was the dream, and the hallucination in front of her was real.

[poodychulak]

That feeling when the sheep hits the pipe and you realize this is going somewhere radically different

[blulynx]

I just can't get over how good the voice acting is in this short. You can feel all the emotion, clear as day, from audio alone.

[thejustofit]

The very end scene where Galen says "We're almost there, pinky swear." tells me that they were both attempting to OD in that bathtub. Where Myra has a naive and gullible belief that Galen is taking her to space and subconciously she may know but he seems to know full well that he's trying to make them both commit suicide. Perhaps the guilt of introducing Myra to her drug addiction was too much for Galen to handle, he felt he was a bad influence and that is why he strayed away from her. After he tried to get clean he relapsed and then either attempted to escape using drugs, attempted suicide through drugs, or both. This left Myra all alone to reminice in nightmarish trips in the bathtub they once both used to cope with their crippling addiction. Sad but beautiful.

[AB-ufet]

Me at the start: omg this is gonna be about the sheep's dreams of going to space! So cute 😆



Me, after watching: ok nevermind... :(

[Dragonscale]

Im sure emmy doesnt want to confirm or deny anyone’s individual interpretations of the short, but i’ll share my understanding of what happened!

Galen passed away from OD. Myra is in the bathtub alone from the start of the piece. She is clutching her memory box in order to conjure memories of galen and the times he comforted her, which causes her to imagine or hallucinate he is there now comforting her through her bad trip as she has a breakdown over his death

Each short clip is a memory left in the box, which in turn bring up other unbidden memories (such as galen talking about his sister)

At the peak of her breakdown she disassociates and remembers that galen has died (“see you, space cadet” is a definite goodbye) and she returns to the bathtub in the empty house, alone like she has been from the beginning of this trip

Amazing job again, emmy. Really has people thinking and feeling, obviously

[FullyFazed]

When he said “you’re safe space cadet” I felt that

[Wnsloe]

This is my interpretation of it:

Ever since Myra was little, she’d always wanted to go space. She was always a good child, happily behaving and rewarding, and had a bright childhood. Then one day, she met her best friend Galen. Myra and Galen ended up sharing the same dream and played pretend once in a while with each other about going to space. One day, Galen says to Myra “wanna go to space?” And introduces her to drugs. I think this meant that Galen was trying to convince Myra that if she took the drugs, they could go to space. Then, after they got high, the music changes. It becomes a little bit more twisted and melancholy. After that, a few quick images start flashing. In these images we see a picture of Galen and Myra together when they were kids, a picture of them together from when they bought glow stars (the ones in Myra’s Bathroom), and a picture of them making graffiti about NASA, or, space. I think this symbolizes that Myra became more of a trouble maker after she started taking drugs. She became so obsessed with the idea of going to space with Galen, that she became somewhat addicted. This is where her life starts going downhill. Next we see a scene of Galen telling Myra: “sis asked why I don’t live at home anymore. I told her I’m sick, and it’s not her fault.” He says this just as he throws his cigarette to the ground. This might say that Galen has become a serious drug addict, and doesn’t live with his family anymore. I think this symbolizes that Galen soon died of an overdose. Which leads us to the present, where Myra is sitting in her bathtub, mourning over the fact that Galen is dead, clutching her memory box. All of these memories we just witnessed were just fragmented scenes depicted from the pictures inside Myra’s memory box. Myra now sees drugs as an escape. A way to “go to space” and see Galen again. But she’s afraid. While she’s in her bathtub, she starts hallucinating and starts seeing Galen in front of her, as he offers her to smoke. Galen asks her where she wants to be/go, and Myra says she wants to go to space. Though it’s technically impossible for her to physically go to outer space, she’s still able to go a space-type reality through drugs. A “trip” to space through drugs. But she then claims that she’s afraid to go to “space”. Most likely because she lost her best friend because he went to “space” too often. Then there’s the scene where they’re in a pitch black void and Myra tells Galen that she just had the worst “trip” ever. This might mean that she thought Galen’s death was actually just a trip to space. That it wasn’t real. Then, we see Galen in a space suit. He then proceeds to say: “see you, space cadet” just as he takes off his astronaut helmet. I believe this symbolizes that this is when Myra is hit with the cold reality that Galen is actually dead. When someone takes their helmet off in space, they die. And the farewell just makes it even more clear to Myra that he’s gone. She realizes the Galen has gone to space, and isn’t coming back. Hence why she’s afraid to go to “space”. Because it is an altered reality that makes you think that you’re somewhere when you’re actually not. But she can’t help herself. She is addicted to being able to go to space that she can’t even control her ability to refuse to. So, she hung up the glow stars in her bathtub so that she could be able to go to space with Galen.

[foreverpainful]

Hi Emmy. I just wanted to say how touching this film was for me. My boyfriend and I were both addicted to opioids and eventually settled into using heroin. He attempted suicide with fentanyl and destroyed his life. I got clean and he was trying to recover too, but in a very bad environment. When things didn’t go as planned and we ran out of options, we both planned to kill ourselves with a mixture of fentanyl and bth after a long bender. Instead, we both became cripplingly addicted again, and he asked me to stay alive with him; he was scared to die and go to Hell and be separated from me as he is Catholic. We had sabotaged our lives and it would have been very difficult to get back to normal, to survive at all without drugs. But I finally agreed. We went through withdrawl together in a very bad apartment with someone who was very awfult o us and kicked us out. We eventually made it and got back home, to the house I had just started renting; my parents welcomed us with open arms and have basically nursed us back to health. They’ve been incredibly supportive.

We’ve been clean for 6 months. I went through withdrawl cold turkey but because his addiction was way deeper than mine, he made the choice to get on Suboxone- and he is never even considering Methadone again as that is what destroyed his chance of recovery and independence the first time (And shame on the doctors that convinced him to switch in the first place due to his headache instead of just prescribing him excedrin).

I hope to be an advocate for addiction and do my part to help others. Every time I watch Memory Box again, I am well, flooded with memories and the reality of what could have happened to us. I am just glad we are safe.


Thank you Emma, if you actually read this, for your time and for this beautiful masterpiece. Your empathy and humanization for addicts is much appreciated.

Toanyone else who may read this, there is always hope for addiction; there are so many resources, and the process is not always scary, as there are different options. Have faith in yourself, and God bless you.

[aalthesuppe]

This honestly made me super emotional, I didn’t know I needed this until now. Your style of story telling and animation work together so well and give off the feeling of nostalgia and innocence that really works with the story. The characters and morals are compelling and engaging and I really hope you can make more stuff like this! You should have your own cartoon or something YOU HAVE TALENT!!! X

[maxskellington]

So basically my analysis of this is that Galen convinced Myra to try and OD with him, but it didn't go right and Myra survived. Only causing Myra to fall deeper into her addiction, going on extremely intense trips during breakdowns over losing Galen. Causing hallucinations and flashbacks to her childhood.

[muntzzy]

The little ear twitch at "safe" gets me every time

[emmystork]

Thank you everyone for such thoughtful comments. It truly means so much to me. I wish I had more words to describe how I feel, but I appreciate it all so much. I’ve enjoyed reading all your theories about the ending as well. I’d like to address a couple of things below.

1. The soundtrack is available here:


3. “The art of Memory Box” will also become available in the near future. It will feature WIP art, the original art/concept (going back as much as 6 years!), what inspired the story, and what I plan to do in the future possibly...

4. If you would like to see more of my art in a non professional setting, search "Horrorhippies" on instagram or twitter or click the links below.
- Professionally visit, emmystork.com
*On my social media accounts I am hosting a giveaway to win art of your character in my film style. Ends October 16th 2019*

[debatingaftershock]

Having the child like style with such a serious human narrative was such a balancing choice.
Great creativity

[kakochi]

I love how she raises her pinky swear at 0:52 first as if she was already hallucinated from the beginning.

What a detailed foreshadowing

[Okamigirliliketurtles]

So...ah. my uncle died last month from related circumstances and... I just... It just makes me really glad to see this subject and those affected being humanized. He was such a good guy, he loved my aunt Emmie so much, he loved his dog, he loved his family and he was always smiling. He was so full of life, he was human.

[SkeetRadar]

I legitimately started to cry. the voice-acting, story and art are all so heartfelt and emotional. I've been through similar pain to theirs so it really hit me hard. great work. I cant wait to see more art from you!

[deathcard]

This is underrated as hell. This is such a beautiful animation and story, along with the voice acting. Wonderful job

[petermurphy]

The work you've put into this, developing it into a fully realized short over the course of a year and thinking about the story for much longer really shows. It's clear that a lot of care was put into the color design, prop design, background art, and cinematography for every single scene.

And the storytelling is very ambitious and creative! I think you used the whole CRT/VHS motif really effectively to signal the timeline jumps. There's a lot to say. I gush. I GUSH, I tell ya. I'm so proud of you!

[steeljortz]

Feels like so long I'd been seeing this in bits and pieces as you worked on it, but… damn, seeing the whole thing is something else. Every single piece fits together so well. I'm stunned.

So happy to see you finally get this project out into the light of day, because this really deserves to be seen.