Edmonton Journal has reported:

A short animated film by University of Toronto student Lauren L.E. Peralta will be screened at KingCon in Atlantic City this October, joining work by other Canadian filmmakers adapting Stephen King stories. Peralta made “Luckey Quarter” in 2023 as a Grade 11 student, using the author’s short story as the basis for a school-year passion project.

KingCon, a convention celebrating the bestselling horror author’s work, returns to Atlantic City, New Jersey, from Oct. 22 to 24. It follows an inaugural event in 2024. Peralta’s cartoon will appear alongside films by British Columbia producer Norm Coyne and New Brunswick director Jon Mann, who bring different perspectives to King’s body of work.

Peralta is now a Chemistry major at the University of Toronto, with minors in Psychology and Environmental Studies. Her father, Samuel Peralta, suggested that she apply to the Dollar Baby program, which allowed students and emerging filmmakers or theatre producers to adapt one of King’s short stories for $1.

“Students had to come up with a passion project to work on for the entire year. My Dad had suggested that I be part of the Dollar Baby program, which could act as both a school and personal project,” Peralta told Postmedia.

She said her parents helped sustain her interest in film and creative work. “I’ve grown up loving the arts and I’m grateful to my parents who always nurtured this love,” she said.

The Dollar Baby program supported aspiring filmmakers for decades before it ended. Peralta said she felt fortunate to have made her film before the program closed, and that the experience strengthened her confidence in her abilities. She said it gave her and other aspiring filmmakers an opportunity to gain experience making films.

“I am extremely grateful and proud to be part of the Dollar Baby program, especially being able to make it before the end of the program,” Peralta said. “I remember when my Dad told me that the program had ended and I felt so lucky to have participated in the program. It increased my confidence in trusting my abilities and taking the time to ensure my adaptation was something I could look back on with pride. It was an amazing opportunity for myself and other aspiring filmmakers to gain experience in creating films.”

The filmmakers’ connection to King’s stories also extends through Samuel Peralta, who has produced at least five adaptations: “Big Driver” and “Rest Stop,” both in 2015; “Dedication” in 2021; “Luckey Quarter” in 2023; and “Willa” in 2024. He said his daughter’s film is among a small number of animated Dollar Baby films and may be the only animated version of “Luckey Quarter.” King makes a cameo in the story, he said.

“Luckey Quarter is also the first and only Stephen King film to be launched to the Moon, landing in a time capsule in early 2025,” Samuel Peralta said.

For Lauren Peralta, the story’s emotional centre made it the right choice. She said its hopeful ending appealed to her, while many of King’s better-known works are horror stories. At the time, she felt her age and limited experience with the genre would make it harder to adapt those stories effectively.

“The message of Luckey Quarter, with its hopeful and happy ending, was what drew me into the short story,” she said. She also connected with the story’s focus on family because she is close to her parents, and said she could empathize with Darlene and the relationship between Darlene and her daughter, Patty. That connection gave her confidence that she could portray the characters’ feelings in a film.

Peralta decided to animate the story after selecting it. The school-project format made animation a practical choice because she would not need to film scenes or recruit actors across the characters’ wide age range. She was also interested in learning animation.

“The logistics of this technically being a school project meant that it would be easier to not have to film and recruit other actors, especially due to the wide age range of all the characters,” she said. “At the time I was also interested in learning how to animate, so that led to choosing animation.”

Animation gave her room to shape the film’s visual approach through storyboards and revisions. Peralta said the process let her sit with her ideas and adjust scenes as needed, while pushing her to clarify what she wanted viewers to understand. She also said animation allowed her interpretation to come through more fully than she believed it could in a live-action production, where actors contribute their own readings of characters.

Although King is usually associated with horror, Peralta saw the story’s unsettling elements in Darlene’s worry as a single mother about caring for her two children. She used close-ups and facial expressions to convey Darlene’s quiet pain and the sense that she cannot provide the childhood she thinks her children deserve. In some moments, Darlene smiles, but pain remains visible in her eyes.

Sound also helped establish the shift between hope and hardship. Peralta used light ukulele music during a dream, then silence after Darlene wakes to underscore the reality she faces. When Darlene wrestles with an internal conflict, including what to do with the quarter or what she truly needs in life, a drumbeat serves as a heartbeat. Peralta said viewers can interpret it as anxiety, excitement or another emotion, while the rhythm also builds anticipation in a way associated with horror films.

Turning Darlene’s internal monologue into images was one of the adaptation’s main challenges. Peralta said putting the words on screen alone would be like asking viewers to read the book, so she often paired thoughts with facial expressions. At the story’s climax, however, she chose not to show Darlene’s face as she considers what she needs, instead using a sequence of conflicting thoughts to place viewers inside her mind.

Much of the film’s writing, including the internal monologue, uses direct quotations from the book, Peralta said. She used colour to add her own visual language, with the animation otherwise mostly in black and white. Colour marks scenes such as the casino, as well as moments of emotion or character development, to emphasize their importance.

The casino sequence required research because Peralta had never been inside one. She looked into the roulette set-up, the board and the scene’s overall feel, then worked to show Darlene’s winnings without making the sequence repetitive. She said animating the roulette for the first spin and the final two spins helped build suspense as the ball rolled and viewers could root for Darlene to win.

The closing scene with Darlene and her children was the part Peralta felt proudest of. She said it captured the story’s central idea that being with family is enough, a realization that connected with her while animating the scene and again when she watched it for the first time in two years. She said she was proud of her Grade 11 self for communicating hope and the importance of family through the animation.

If King watched the adaptation, Peralta said she would want its message of hope to reach him. She hopes viewers leave feeling warm and hopeful, with a sense that support from people who care can help someone keep going through life’s difficulties. She said Darlene’s internal struggles remain prevalent today.

Asked about future film plans, Peralta said she has been thinking about ideas for comics or graphic novels because she loves to draw. She is unsure whether she will make more films, but expects she may create short animatics and animation based on her own characters or other inspirations from reading.

A small group of filmmakers have adapted King’s written work, including Frank Darabont, Rob Reiner, Tobe Hooper, John Carpenter, Brian De Palma, Mike Flanagan, Mick Garris, Stanley Kubrick and David Cronenberg. Peralta’s “Luckey Quarter” brings animation into that history, as the film heads to KingCon during the final chapter of the Dollar Baby program.