SALT LAKE CITY — One Utah Professor is part of a group receiving one of the film industry's highest honors.
Hubbel Palmer, a screenwriting professor at the University of Utah, co-wrote a film called "Ninety-Five Senses," which was nominated for Best Animated Short Film at the 2024 Oscars.
“When the words ‘Ninety-Five Senses’ came up on the screen,” Palmer said. “ I mean, it was just like a feeling I've never experienced before.”
The film was produced by MAST, a non-profit program of the Salt Lake Film Society.
“So it's actually about a man who's on death row, awaiting his execution,” Palmer said. “And as he's counting down the minutes, he's looking back on all the things he's done. — the happy times in his life, and also the mistakes he's made and the regrets he has. And all of it is sort of through the lens of his five senses.”
Each scene is animated in six distinctive styles by six different artists.
Palmer and his co-writer Chris Bowman got the idea in 2019 when they found a series called Execution Watch, which are interviews of death row inmates.
The film took over three years from the initial concept to animation, and first premiered in 2022.
“Well, we started putting the film out in the world once it was completed,” Palmer added. “And initially, it was sort of like, not a lot of interest from film festivals.”
That all changed quickly.
“And then it just kind of started to snowball," he said.
People and festivals have taken notice of their film. "Ninety-Five Senses" has been in over 30 film festivals and has won over a dozen awards.
However, Palmer isn't just excited for his achievement as a screenwriter, but mostly for the team that he worked with, who he says came from various parts of the world and Utah.
“That was one of the coolest parts about this was the international nature of the crew,” Palmer said with a smile. “You know, I mean, these aren't animators who work for Disney or Pixar, you know, any of the animation companies that we know of.”
The Oscar nomination is a first for the professor in his career in film and he hopes this accolade will be an opportunity to guide his students in an often challenging industry.
“Working with the university has been an absolute pleasure, and, you know getting to know these young, aspiring filmmakers and help them shepherd their dreams from idea to reality has been totally cool and rewarding," he said.
