Winning animation has plenty of charm

A charming animation created by Warwick Senior High School student Zariah Hart has won the school-aged category at the 2026 WAnimate 3|Thirty Awards.

The 3|Thirty is an animation and visual effects competition run by the West Australian Animation Association that is open to entries from around the world.

Participants had three months to develop a 30 second animation that must include the 2026 3|Thirty theme - charm.

Warwick Senior High School had five student animations screened at the award ceremony, held at Event Cinemas Innaloo, with Zariah’s animation Charm to Your Heart taking out the overall school-aged category.

The talented Year 12 student said planning and brainstorming played a key part in determining if she could accomplish her idea to a high standard given the deadline.

"I really enjoy the process of animation where you get to create every single frame and slowly see it come to life.” Zariah said.

“There are many interpretations with the word charm and amongst all my ideas I had, I went with the idea of a decorative charm for jewellery, settling with a nice romantic love story of buying a necklace charm for my character's girlfriend.”

The 3|Thirty is judged on artistic merit, technical skill, creative storytelling, and audio quality.

Judge Tessa Bright from Flying Bark Productions said she hoped to see more from Zariah in the future.

"Charm to Your Heart is a charming, well-executed, and ambitious short film," she said.

"The music, art style and colour choices throughout work together to complement the storytelling and I thoroughly enjoyed watching it."

For an aspiring young animator like Zariah, the competition is an opportunity to gain practical experience and insight from industry professionals.

“Combining the storyboard together and using that as a reference, as well as photographing or recording my very own references when animating a difficult scene is something I find extremely fun about animation,” Zariah said.

"Being able to do animation as a job has been a dream of mine for a long time so I would like to pursue this as a career in the future once I've finished school."

All winning entries can be viewed on the WAnimate website.