Created as Daniel Beaulieu's final animated project at Vancouver Film School, Malaise was an animated short created to pay tribute to movies including elements of Solaris, Barbarella and Alien. It's quite obvious thanks to the chunky retro-futuristic look he captured with the interior design of the ships, which pay homage to that era of scifi. Beaulieu chose to marry a more stylized look for the characters with more realistic animation, which actually ended up working pretty well within the confines of this mini narrative.