Ohio State alumni, Moon Seun and Kevin Geiger, presented an advance screening of their 3-D computer animated short film, “Henry’s Garden,” Thursday at the Wexner Center for the Arts.

This eight-minute film is about an ogre-like monster, named Henry, who loves flowers.

“The goal is to have the audience empathize with this character,” Geiger said.

Geiger said he would be happy if the film made one person cry.

The film begins when Henry walks through a fence into a beautiful garden. He picks a flower and is happy until large tires start rolling toward him, ruining the garden and crushing the flower in his hand. He ends up standing in the middle of a dark city, surrounded by skyscrapers.

The film ends when another black tire rolls toward the monster and he picks it up in anger. Henry picks up the tire and sees a bright light shining through it, and once again, his beautiful yellow flowers are blooming.

Seun said this symbolizes that life continues through all the hard times.

“(‘Henry’s Garden’) symbolizes the pieces of the human spirit and the simple pleasures of loving,” Seun said. The scene in the dark city symbolized that nature is ruined when industry takes over.

Geiger said the film is 90 percent complete. He and Seun said they were happy when Henry could turn his head completely around and look back at the audience.

“Your work is successful when your character has intelligence and life,” Geiger said.

The husband-and-wife team has been working on this short film for about 2 1/2 years. Their goal is for it to eventually become a feature film.

Seun and Geiger are also working on turning “Henry’s Garden” into a children’s book.

Making the film has been time consuming, Seun said.

She works from about 8 a.m. until midnight, seven days a week.

Geiger works full time as a computer graphics supervisor at Walt Disney Feature Animation and is also a member of the Experimental Animation Faculty in the Cal Arts School of Film/Video. On nights and weekends, he is busy working on this film.

Both Seun and Geiger have an extensive background in art and design. The couple met their freshman year at the Cleveland Institute of Art.

In 1989, Seun received her bachelor of fine art degree in metalsmithing and photography, and Geiger received his bachelor of fine art degree in painting, with a minor in sculpture.

In 1992, Seun and Geiger began graduate school at OSU and were the first students accepted into the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design program.

In 1994, they both received their master of fine art degrees.

During this time, the couple launched their first film, “Panopticon,” which was displayed in exhibits across the country.

In 1995, Seun and Geiger moved to Los Angeles and worked with Boss Film Studios on digital creature effects for MGM’s “Species.”

Seun then joined DreamWorks and worked as a 3-D animator for three years.

Seun left this industry upon completion of “The Road to El Dorado” to pursue “Henry’s Garden” full time.

After the film Thursday, Geiger gave important career advice to students pursuing this field. He told students not to worry about the starting wages.

“You will be paid enough to eat,” he said.

Geiger said that gaining experience early on is very important.

“You will have to learn how to survive in a desert,” he said.

He also said this field is very location-sensitive.

“You absolutely have to live on the West Coast to be successful in this industry,” he said.