The animated short submitted ( Dancer By The Sea) was created by a collaborative and interdisciplinary group of students at the University of Washington. For each of the student production team members this was their very first experience creating an animated short film. The location for the story is based on a house that is located on the Olympic Peninsula in western Washington state in the US and the student production team travelled to that location several times to get a feel for the geography and the visual character and mood of the area and their story. The story was based on two interactions with sea otters in the wild at a state park and the relationship that developed between the older woman and the otter is a composite of the those experiences. The students captured the sadness and loss of a woman many years their senior and followed her transformation over one year in a sensitive, beautiful and subtle depiction of life changes that are internal. The film screened at the Seattle International Film Festival. Barbara Mones served as the Director and Producer for the film but the film was created by the students and staff in the program.