Goodbye Forever Party

Forever Party is Jonni Phillips' most popular film to date. As of June 3, 2019, it has nearly 33,000 views. It is part 2 of her five part animated series, Wasteland.

Plot
Lilith is a performer of a children's show called The Scrumbos. At the studio she works with her fellow coworkers and acts in episodes of the show, directed by Von Soupton, who is loud and angry. Soupton chastises Lilith's performance and calls the day over. On the way out, Lilith avoids a crowd of protestors protesting against the Scrumbos outside the studio as she heads to her car. Lilith's girlfriend, Mae, drives her home, but is slightly miffed at the state of their relationship. Lilith arrives home to her roommate Jared, who says he is unable to repay the 20 dollars he borrowed from Lilith. That night, Lilith has trouble sleeping.

As she arrives to work the next morning, Lilith and Mae see the crowd of protestors outside, and Lilith leaves the car in a hurry to get to work. At the studio, the crew is filming an episode of The Scrumbos centred around the death of a character named Mr. Rabbit. After shooting, Mae visits Lilith at work. The two have a conversation on the balcony, where Mae asks Lilith why she has been acting so distant lately, asking if she did anything wrong. Lilith responds by saying that Mae hasn't "actually [done] anything." When Mae asks further, Lilith responds by suggesting that she may just not love her anymore. The two break up, and Lilith has a breakdown on the balcony, screaming at the protestors below.

Lilith begins to disassociate from reality the following days. Soupton, tired of Lilith's behaviour, fires her, and Lilith leaves town. She goes to see a therapist, who simply tells her to "pray more." Lilith gets her drivers license and changes her name to Nova. She exercises, buys a car, and drives into the wilderness to go hiking. There, she begins to disassociate again and sees the Scrumbos.

The film ends with a section of The Scrumbos going to bed in their own ways. When it comes to Lilith's Scrumbo, her body leaves the costume, similar to a ghost, as she walks out into the Scrumbo sunset.

Cast and Characters

 * Lilith Johnson (Played by Aster Pang)
 * Mae (Played by Emily Martinez)
 * Director Von Soupton (Played by Jonni Phillips)
 * Moose God (Played by Victoria Vincent)
 * Scrumbos (Played by Kai Lynn Jiang)
 * Jared (Played by Noah Malone)
 * Mr. Bunny (Played by Lorenzo Frista)
 * Scatting Bug (Played by Isabel Higgins)

Style
Goodbye Forever Party is animated on pencil and paper. The animation would be traditionally drawn on pencil and paper, and characters would be cut out from their frames but still registered to the pegbar (which keeps the frames in place). Backgrounds, characters, and different layers of the scene would be laid on different panes of glass to create "an illusion of depth."

The film frequently uses a brass horn sound as a significant motif.

History
Jonni began writing Goodbye Forever Party on May of 2016. When she first came up with the idea and it started off as a short comedy project based on her fascination of the cast of the Teletubbies. Over time, she turned it very personal due to the film discussing the negative events that happened in her life. As she continued to write it in November of 2016, it shifted to a film about leaving the past, empathy, and leaving your past behind. The film has many themes of mental illness and attempting to overcome it.

Goodbye Forever Party was screened at Slamdance Film Festival two years after its release.