Animation of the First Degree chronicles a middle-aged hospital administrator's attempts to produce animated movies as a home based hobby. While balancing single parent responsibilities, financial pressures on the health care industry, and unfurling social circumstances, the amateur filmmaker's passion for mastering his technical abilities releases a latent artistic prowess. In some ways, the over-lapping challenges of concept, character, plot, and design seem to mirror the common trials of the modern human adventure. At a minimum, a similar sequence of maturation applies to the character's passage through life. With each successive labor of love, a personal style steadily progresses until the filmmaker becomes so deeply imbedded in an imagined mise en scene...he is stunned and horrified to discover that he can't find his way back out."