The Global Search for Education: Preheated from Directors Luke Snedecor and Sarah Heinz Is About Prioritizing Important Relationships

Posted By C. M. Rubin on Jan 13, 2022

This month on the Planet Classroom Network, audiences can enjoy creators Sarah Heinz’s and Luke Snedecor’s short animated film, Preheated.

A boy wants to do something very special for his father on his birthday. Dad is an overworked scientist who’s been preoccupied with the challenges of his own work. His son decides to bake him a cake to surprise him. Things get fairly crazy and complicated in the process as creative problem-solving becomes the all important skill. Audiences will be moved by the lengths both son and father ultimately go for one another. The film’s music was created by Paul Heinz.

The Global Search for Education is pleased to welcome Sarah Heinz and Luke Snedecor.

We love this film, especially because the boy is able to find new ways to overcome all the obstacles – what inspired this fun story?

Sarah: I love all things food and come from an animation background. Luke comes from the VFX side of storytelling. By combining our two talents, we found this story that would include all the fun elements of a VFX project (like fire and liquid effects), but adding the heart and appeal of an old Disney short.

Luke: It was so fun to create this story with Sarah; we knew we wanted to bake a cake, and we thought of every way to make that impossible, but gave our character a clever solution for each problem he faced!

How would you describe the feedback you’ve had from audiences? What has surprised you most? What did you most want audiences to take away?

Sarah: We wanted our audiences to feel the determination and love this boy had. The most surprising response is that we have more than 6.5 million views on Youtube!

Luke: I’m so glad that people enjoy watching our film. It has been especially cool to see classrooms using the film to help kids write and understand visual storytelling. At the core of our story is the message of prioritizing your relationships with others over your pursuit of success, and I hope people walk away from the film inspired to love one another more!

We really enjoyed the hot hands idea for the son to deal with. How did that particular idea come to life? Were there other ideas that you tossed around?

Sarah: Our original idea was to create a simple short about the struggles of baking at a young age. We realized, however, that this was a little too mundane for an animated story, so we thought of the hot hands idea to up the stakes and add a bit of fantasy.

Luke: We came up with all kinds of crazy stories, ranging from body swapping with a pigeon to crazy science catastrophes. The most challenging part was making everything work out in our character’s favor!

What lessons can you share with young creators who want to go into animation?

Sarah: Don’t be afraid to collaborate with others! The film industry is all about working on a team, and this film absolutely would not have been successful if we hadn’t trusted each other and split the workload. It also gives you teammates to help find solutions to the problems you’ll run into.

Luke: Check out all the tutorials on Youtube to get started. If you’re interested in computer generated software, you can learn so much online and it’s never too early or late to get started.

What are you working on now?

Sarah: I am working at Paramount Animation on the production team for a feature film. I am also developing and writing screenplays for animation and submitting them to festivals.

Luke: I am so excited to launch my VFX company, SnedFX, next year! I’ll be working on VFX for feature films and more animated short films, hoping to eventually develop our own IP.

Thanks guys!