New Short ‘Is All Cheese Sentient?’ Introduces the Bohrsville Multiverse

Writing partners T.J. Rowe and Rich Nardo have shared with AWN their new animated short film, Is All Cheese Sentient?, which introduces the Bohrsville multiverse, a narrative world more than a decade in the making.

The film follows Red and Eddy, intergalactic delivery workers who become involved in a plan to challenge a corporate scheme with multiversal consequences. The pair enlist SpaceCheese and Barstool Man as they attempt to derail the plans of the Intergalactic Urban Development Agency and its associated criminal underbelly.

Living the indie animator dream! Prepare for cheese!

Is All Cheese Sentient? is the first short film to emerge from the duo’s Bohrsville universe. Rowe and Nardo took more than 10 years to develop the broader concept, building multiple interconnected storylines centered on themes including mental health, corporate power, and an impending multiversal rupture.

The short was written, produced, and performed by Rowe and Nardo; Rowe animated the film, created sound effects, and contributed music from his band Dingboat to the score. The project was produced under the creators’ production company, Stratford Road Creative. Both previously collaborated on the award-winning projects Lil Thrashers and Lizzie Wilding. Yes, they helped make No Weenies Allowed!

Regarding their new short, Nardo tells AWN, “These characters are actually part of a bigger multiversal story line that T.J. and I have been building in silly little brainstorm sessions for about 15 years now. About 2 years ago, we finally figured out how to piece this wild narrative together across all of the storylines and develop what the characters would be visually. We learned the importance of world building on social media from another project we were a part of (Lil Thrashers/Lizzie Wilding) so our first step was to dive into that. For this film, it took us about a year to make it. It’s just T.J. and I right now doing every aspect of the film (and the greater Bohrsville multiverse). Poor T.J. is animating everything all by his lonesome, which we learned is one heck of a commitment!”

“Nardo and I spent years doing world-building for Bohrsville,” Rowe shares as he describes the production. “The script actually started as a few skits he'd written, then I tied a thread between them. It was a way for me to complain about capitalism while trying to find and spread some hope for community. Once we had a script we were happy with, we hopped on a zoom call and captured the audio to use for voice performances. I created the concept art and some background elements in procreate. Then, I did all the animation in Toonsquid using keyframing, bone rigging and frame by frame techniques. Sound effects were all recorded in GarageBand. I'd say 90-95% of them are me making silly noises with my mouth and throwing some effects on top. All of the music in the film is from an upcoming album called Voices by my band Dingboat. Our first single ‘Work Clothes on the Weekend’ is streaming now!”

Discussing the challenges of the production, Rowe continues, “The biggest challenges were probably time and resources, lack of experience, and getting out of my own head. It took a lot of late nights on the couch with my iPad and early Cartoon Network shows on in the background. Not a bad way to spend a year.”

Nardo adds, “I’d say the biggest challenge was the two of us trying to tackle the incredibly long list of things that needed to be done in order to bring a short animated film to life properly. It’s only going to get harder from here as the greater story ventures into a lot of different mediums, but I couldn’t think of a better way to spend time than building this with one of my favorite people in the world. It’s a labor of love and hopefully people enjoy it as much as we LOVE making it!”

Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.