This paper examines independent animated filmmaker Don Hertzfeldt's body of work with particular reference to his production techniques and his personal stance within the animated film industry in the US. By tracing the links between his production choices --both on the technical and financial levels -- and his poetics, I aim to demonstrate the possibility of creating new spaces for design in times of change and technical replacement. For this, I will employ a multi-disciplinary methodology that benefit from film analysis, animation history, and media studies.

Don Hertzfeldt is a young contemporary artist but he is already an important figure of animation history in many respects: He has won & nominated for many awards in prestigious festivals such as Sundance and Cannes and has nominations for Academy Awards. He developed a distinctive style of storytelling by integrating the materiality of the medium itself in the narrative.

His refusal to make commissioned animation in any form, be it TV Shows or commercials lead him to build a personal production system both financially and technically. He supports himself only by touring with his films and selling them online; and until recently, to quote him, he "was the last person on earth shooting animation on 35mm rostrum cameras". This was not for political reasons but rather an artistic choice: according to him, some films simply require 35 mm film material while others may benefit from digital media. Which is the case for his last film, World of Tomorrow (2014).

In this article, I argue that Hertzfeldt's production strategy protected him from the fluctuations of the market, where the replacement of analogue by digital techniques caused much turbulence, and that this protection enabled him to create his idiosyncratic poetics.