Recently, Wahid Ibn Reza celebrated the acceptance of his environmentally conscious After Us into the LA Shorts International Film Festival and NewFilmmakers Los Angeles Festival. It’s a project that marks a career departure for the Production Manager, as well as another milestone.
Originally from Bangladesh, Reza calls his mom “one cool chick” who introduced him to comics at an early age. But as an adult, his focus veered. He got his degree in mechanical engineering and worked as the lead actor on a popular TV show and head writer for a high-profile ad agency. By his late 20s he says he felt as if he’d already reached his ceiling, except for one thing: he wanted to work on a Hollywood movie.
Because film schools in the U.S. were so expensive, in 2010 Reza opted to study at the University of British Columbia. While working at a call center to pay the bills, he began applying for entertainment jobs but wasn’t having much luck. A friend suggested he try animation, and when Reza replied that he’s not an artist, his friend told him about production. “There were other roles?” says Reza. “I had no idea.” An interview with Bardel Entertainment landed him an office PA job making minimum wage… and coffee. This led to production tasks, which he quickly mastered, and soon he was offered a Production Assistant job on the first season of Rick and Morty.
While moving up the production ranks, Reza got an idea for a short film. He’d seen a photo of a koala bear that had survived a wildfire in Australia. It was looking directly into the camera, and “that was so haunting to me,” he says. At the same time, he and his wife were trying to have a child, “and I was really emotional in that we need to put this planet in a better place for her generation.”
Reza is a huge fan of the National Film Board of Canada, which funds animated short films. But projects they support tend to be auteur-oriented, and when he reached out, they were concerned that he’d only worked on commercial shows. With a teaser trailer from another project, he convinced them to fund After Us, the tale of three animals on a journey across a post-human world to find out if any other life remains.
While trying to figure out the film’s look, he was playing the interactive video game Journey. He was intrigued by the low-poly design, which is a style that uses a limited number of polygons to create a 3D object. What if this technique was used for the animals, with the addition of a hand-painted texture to make them look like wooden sculptures?
When it came to the animal’s movements, “the story demanded a more sincere and realistic approach,” he says. “And I really wanted continuous shots because, in my head, the environmental crisis is a continuous thing.” This allows the audience a fuller immersion in the characters’ journey, heightening the emotional impact.
Reza’s experience gave him knowledge of the whole production pipeline, allowing him to serve as the film’s Production Manager, Writer, and Director. In the latter role, he mapped shots fully in advance, working out camera angles in his head “because the budget limited us to only three iterations max for storyboards, three iterations max for design,” he says. As for that budget, he was the one doing it, as well as the scheduling and hiring a full crew to do everything from art direction to animation to rigging.
Despite its apocalyptic theme, After Us is a moving story of connection and hope, premiering at the Oscar-qualifying SPARK Animation festival in October 2025. Since then, the short has won three Leo Awards, including Best Animation Program, and Reza was offered a job as a Production Manager on the upcoming The Simpsons Movie 2. Now living in L.A. with his wife and daughter, he has a bible and pilot for an animated series, and he’s working on original stories for animation and live-action projects. Having achieved his “Hollywood movie” goal, he’s well on his way to his next career milestone.
Learn more about mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/after-us/.
