Stitches Come Out

“Stitches Come Out” is a five-minute stop-motion romcom about queer love and the fear of rejection from the perspective of a passing trans man. The meetcute follows Liam and his sentient trans flag hoodie who comedically clash over whether to come out to his crush, Lulu. Representing his trans identity, Hoodie coming to life externalizes an internal conflict trans people often navigate: “is this person safe to come out to?”

I started writing this script in response to the ongoing political persecution of trans people in this country, and the effects that this has had on my trans husband and our immediate queer community. Trans representation is almost always tragic, and I want to bring joy, laughter, and an unexplored experience into the cinematic milieu. 

So, why stop-motion? Well, there is no other medium where I can spend six hours making a 1:6 scale purple oxtail plant out of masking tape only for it to half appear in a shot that lasts four seconds of the final film. Every single second spent working on an independent stop-motion film is relentlessly this. There is magic in moving hand-crafted characters millimeter by millimeter through taking thousands of pictures to tell a story. For a movie rooted in love like “Stitches Come Out”, I can’t imagine a better medium than one based on this same value.