Entering the gallery, you see a vast, primarily empty space with a few boards on the wall with graph sketches and developments of a young boy, and then you hear the music. Creepy and sinister, xylophone-like compositions gave the room an eerie energy.Turning around, you see the screen: "El Valiente," a thesis from UAF computer arts student Christopher Gonzalez, had started.

Initially called "Brave," "El Valiente was going to be about a boy going on an adventure wanting to prove that he is brave.

The film begins with a boy and his father in a bedroom. San Pedro, the father, is encouraging his son, Christobal, on his ability to be a good wrestler. Thinking that stealing something will be his "golden ticket" to being brave, Christobal worryingly ends up running into a graveyard in an attempt to appear brave in the face of his wrestling peer, Rudy. And a graveyard is not the usual environment for a quick bargain.

A skeletal hand grabs Christobal's leg and drags him to the ground, and he has to be rescued by his angry father. "Go home and make me proud," was the message conveyed to Christobal, who then championed in the wrestling ring.

Much more than open-to-interpretation messages in this film, "El Valiente" is giddy with imagination and flush with fresh, strong and colorful visuals. It opens up a valley of insight into the emerging and powerful world of computer-animated films, a hybrid of film and computer game. And this was certainly high quality. The sketches were fun and witty, the detail in the voices and facial expressions of the characters was fine.

Gonzalez's film is further backed with content and context developments, as evidenced by those boards that lined the walls. As his blog states and sketches prove, Gonzalez worked tirelessly over the summer and fall months in the Fine Arts Complex (cheekily self-titled "Farts!") and the quality of his computer arts project paid off.

With the holidays approaching, "El Valiente" was a well-needed mid-term inspiration, that knowledge and stimulus cannot only be spawned through pouring over text books.

What the viewer needs to keep in mind, however, is that it's not a real movie. It is like a videogame, but one where you have to sit and watch instead of participating, with the potential for a lot of expansion. If you're interested in seeing it, go to the University Art Gallery, 312 Art Wing, Fine Arts Complex until Nov. 18.