PAUL EASTHER Writing, Storytelling & Video

Animated shorts by Paul Easther

Meet Lil Juno

Lil Juno is Paul Easther’s animated alter ego: curious, candid and usually the first person to say what everyone else is politely pretending not to notice.

Her short films combine comedy, observation and storytelling craft. They have travelled beyond YouTube into festivals and awards, including a Top Rated placing at the 2026 Focus on Ability Short Film Festival for Lil Juno… Stay Weird.

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Paul Easther sitting on a park bench with his animated character Lil Juno
Paul Easther and Lil Juno — creator and animated alter ego.

Recognition

A small character making a surprisingly large impression

Top RatedFocus on Ability Short Film Festival, 2026
Original characterWritten and created by Paul Easther
Short-form storytellingComedy, observation and creative experiments

The films

Lil Juno on screen

Each film starts with a simple question, observation or creative experiment. This collection explains not only what happens, but why each film was made.

A Good Man

They said he was a saint who never had a harsh word for anyone. Eight-year-old Lil Juno remembers things a little differently. Surrounded by polite whispers, black suits, and mournful classical music, Juno refuses to let the room turn her best mate into a sanitized statue. Because Donald didn't listen to string quartets—he listened to 1970s rock 'n' roll. A 60-second animated drama about memory, family, and celebrating a life truly lived. Written & Directed by Paul Easther Featuring Lil Juno

Why I made it

I wanted to explore how we remember people after they’re gone—and how the truth of a person is often found in small, imperfect stories rather than solemn tributes. A Good Man lets a child cut through the conventions of grief with honesty and humour. It explores loss, memory and the wonderfully flawed details that can make someone worth remembering.

Recognition: Submitted - Filminute 2026

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2:17 A.M.

Whispers in the dark, severed power lines, tactical panic, and mounting disaster... but when the basement door finally creaks open, the true crisis isn't quite what command expected. A deadpan 60-second micro-short parodying classic thriller tropes. Written & Directed by Paul Easther Featuring Lil Juno

Why I made it

I wanted to play with the power of cinematic expectation—how music, lighting and familiar thriller imagery can convince us that something terrible must be happening. 2:17AM deliberately builds that tension, then lets Lil Juno puncture it completely. It explores how easily context shapes what we believe, while having fun with the contrast between adult drama and a child’s practical reality.

Recognition: Submitted — Filminute 2026

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The Waiting Room

Juno walks into a nursing home carrying a bunch of flowers and asks a simple question:
“Why does everyone look like they’re waiting for something?”
But a conversation with Arthur — and a visit with her great-grandmother Margaret — makes Juno realise that the people sitting quietly in those chairs have already lived lives filled with love, laughter, adventure… and a few stories they may not be telling.
Sometimes growing old doesn’t mean the person you once were has disappeared.
They were young once too.
Lil Juno – The Waiting Room is a gentle story about ageing, memory, loneliness and the importance of taking the time to see the person behind the years.

Why I made it

I wanted to explore the idea that ageing changes what we see on the outside, but not necessarily who we remain inside. The Waiting Room looks beyond frailty and dementia to the lives, loves and adventures that came before. It’s a reminder that every older person we pass was once young—and that those earlier selves still matter.

Recognition: Future Festival submission

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The Time Traveller

While taking photos in a sunlit park, a curious young girl named Juno meets an elderly gentleman resting quietly on a bench. What begins as an innocent, playful conversation about dinosaurs, tree climbing, and life before the internet quickly unfolds into a gentle reflection on growing up, aging, and the moments that truly matter.

Is he just an old man reminiscing about youth, a visitor from another era, or something deeper?

**The Time Traveller** is a warm animated short about friendship between generations, the stories carried by older people and the years that remain alive within us.

Why I made it

I wanted to explore the strange way we perceive age. To a child, an elderly person can seem impossibly old, yet that person still carries every younger version of themselves within them. The Time Traveller uses Juno’s literal interpretation of ageing to explore the distance between generations—and how a simple conversation can suddenly make that distance disappear.

Recognition: Future Festival submission

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Little Miss No Followers

In a world obsessed with accumulating followers, Little Miss No Followers has achieved something truly exclusive: an audience of absolutely nobody.

She wears her zero-followers badge proudly, creates compelling content about missing buses and staring into the refrigerator for emotional support, and even sells badges to admirers who want the same gloriously unpopular lifestyle.

Business is going beautifully—until a damaging rumour suggests she may secretly be famous. With her reputation for obscurity suddenly at risk, Little Miss No Followers must defend the most carefully cultivated digital identity of all: being completely unknown.

Why I made it

A satire of follower counts, personal branding and the internet’s ability to transform almost anything into a marketable identity. By treating obscurity as the ultimate status symbol, the film reverses conventional ideas of online success and exposes the absurdity of measuring individuality, popularity and personal worth through social-media statistics.

Recognition: Entrant: Just A Minute Film Festival 2026

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Catch The Tooth Fairy

Lil Juno is quietly eating a cookie when a loose tooth suddenly becomes a potentially profitable business opportunity. The Tooth Fairy is supposedly coming—but Juno and Ginger aren’t prepared to accept that without evidence.

Soon the bedroom has been transformed into a full surveillance zone, complete with tape, flour traps, cameras and night vision. All they have to do is remain awake long enough to catch their mysterious visitor.

By morning, the tooth has disappeared and money has taken its place. The traps reveal nothing, the camera proves nothing and, once again, the delivery remains impossible to explain.

Why I made it

A playful investigation into childhood belief, curiosity and the mysteries adults carefully preserve. By treating the Tooth Fairy’s arrival like a serious surveillance operation, the film celebrates a child’s desire for proof while suggesting that some traditions—rather like Santa’s deliveries—remain more enjoyable when a little of their magic escapes the camera.

Recognition: Entrant: Just A Minute Film Festival 2026

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The Secret Ingredient

Lil Juno sets out to bake the perfect inclusion cookie, only to discover a recipe insisting that every ingredient—and every cookie—must be exactly the same.

The result is neat, predictable and thoroughly boring. It reminds Juno of a world in which everyone is expected to belong to the same standard batch. But Juno’s brain doesn’t do “standard”; it prefers a mixture of different flavours, shapes and possibilities.

If every cookie on the tray were identical, there would be nothing interesting to choose from. The same, Juno decides, is true of people.

Why I made it

A simple baking metaphor that helps younger audiences understand diversity and genuine inclusion. The film explains that inclusion does not require people to think, behave or experience the world in identical ways. It means recognising the value of individual differences and ensuring everyone has a place at the table—because originality makes the whole mixture better.

Recognition: Entrant: Focus On Ability Film Festival 2026

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Lil Juno - Stay Weird

Lil Juno’s older brother wins mathematics trophies. Juno wins trophies for turning up—an achievement she considers equally prestigious. Her teacher calls her a “creative listener,” while Juno suspects she is simply thinking about cookies during fractions.

Then there is Great-Aunt June: a wheelchair user, a formidable tactician and someone regularly subjected to the patronising baby voice of well-meaning strangers. While other people focus on June’s disability, Juno sees her intelligence, resilience and refusal to be diminished.

After all, Juno has two working legs and can still trip over a perfectly flat rug. Perhaps “normal” and “able” aren’t such useful labels after all.

Why I made it

A funny but pointed challenge to the labels society places on intelligence, disability and normality. Through Juno’s self-deprecating humour and admiration for Great-Aunt June, the film asks audiences to look beyond physical differences and simplistic categories, recognise each person’s real strengths, and become the best version of themselves—however unusual that version may be.

Recognition: Top Rated: Focus On Ability Film Festival 2026

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Visiting Uncle Leo

Sent to Uncle Leo’s bakery in search of a screen-free hobby, Lil Juno discovers that baking may require considerably more skill—and fewer “tiny adjustments”—than she expected.

Leo is blind, but he is also a master pastry chef who moves through his kitchen with extraordinary confidence, experience and precision. When Juno’s attempt to help threatens an elaborate wedding cake, Leo calmly detects the problem and repairs it with a flurry of lightning-fast moves.

The cake—and the wedding—survive. Juno leaves with a little less confidence in her own baking abilities and a much greater understanding of Uncle Leo’s.

Why I made it

A humorous and respectful exploration of ability, adaptation and the danger of judging someone by what they cannot do. Through Uncle Leo’s expertise and Juno’s well-intentioned chaos, the film shows that capability is not about possessing every possible advantage—it is about developing and using the strengths you have.

Recognition: Finalist: Focus on Ability Film Festival 2026

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Visiting My Grandparents

Lil Juno visits her grandparents and immediately falls victim to her grandmother’s supernatural baking skills: a cookie simply materializes in her hand before she sees it coming.

Grandpa follows with a “back in my day” story about the almost unbelievable age of telephones attached to cords. Juno attempts to return the favour by explaining her iPad, but abandons the demonstration when her grandparents’ eyes glaze over—for everyone’s safety.

She eventually heads home with six cookies, three life lessons and a knitted hat she never agreed to. A ten-out-of-ten visit to two people who may not understand modern technology but still understand the things that matter.

Why I made it

A warm, humorous look at the differences between grandchildren and grandparents—and the affection that easily crosses the generational divide. The film contrasts technological complexity with the enduring magic of homemade food, family stories, remembered birthdays and wisdom passed quietly from one generation to the next.

Recognition: Joint Winner: UPSTAGEING Art, Photography & Video Awards 2025

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Meeting Angus The Rocker

Lil Juno is happily walking along, munching a chocolate cookie, when she encounters Angus—a tiny, white-haired rocker dressed in a school uniform and carrying the confidence of someone who has definitely commanded a stage.

One guitar note is enough to panic every pigeon within three blocks—even the stone ones. Then, after delivering the mysterious advice, “School never ends, kid,” Angus power-walks away as though he has a world tour and a maths test on the same afternoon.

For Lil Juno, it’s a ten-out-of-ten encounter with living proof that old rockers never really grow up.

Why I made it

A playful tribute to the enduring spirit of ageing musicians and the strange magic that keeps a true performer forever young. Through exaggeration, visual comedy and Lil Juno’s candid observations, the film celebrates individuality, confidence and the irresistible swagger of an old rocker who still knows exactly who he is.

Recognition: Joint Winner of the UPSTAGEING Art, Photography & Video Awards 2025

Watch on YouTube →