TWINS Hannah and Emily Jordan have celebrated countless milestones together - and can now add winning a major film and media award to the list.
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The University of Newcastle alumni have been named winners of the 2019 SAE ATOM Awards' Best Tertiary Animation category for their short film, Obscura.
"It's really fulfilling," Emily, 24, said.
"Stop motion animation is extremely arduous - we were in our garage moving puppets frame by frame for four hours each day.
"It was a painstaking process but I think it paid off."
The sisters flew to Melbourne for the award ceremony and while thrilled to be nominated, never thought they'd win.
"[Our category] was the first one called - Hannah swore and I dropped my beer," she said.
"It was utter, complete shock.
"There was a guy in our category who was our idol, Peeping Winkle - we learned a bit through his channel - so to be nominated alongside him was phenomenal.
"It was the first time we'd tried stop motion and to win in the animation category was left field and really unexpected."
The sisters collaborated on Obscura as part of their honours studies, following completion of their three year communication degrees.
Emily said the film told the story of humanoid characters with giant eyes who live inside a camera and perceive the world through the lens, "but don't get the full picture".
"So it takes a few more characters and different people to be introduced for them to get the bigger picture and understand what's going on," she said.
"It was a bit poetic. The stop motion was a cool and interesting aspect, but it was the story that held the audience."
Emily said it was a fitting storyline for the sisters, who she said had grown up dressing up and making up their own worlds.
She said the twins' first foray into animation was made easier thanks to their mentor Susan Kerrigan - who put them in contact with UON head of animation Jane Shadbolt, who connected them with other animators - and entered their work into the competition.
"We did a lot of research - we probably over researched it and scared ourselves with how accurate we had to get it," she said.
"There were lots of failed attempts, we built the puppets out of silicon and spent $1000 on silicon we got it wrong so many times."
Emily said it was "really special" to collaborate with her sister.
"There were definitely moments of anger and rage - you'd be four hours into the piece and accidentally bump the camera and have to start again - and we'd come storming up the stairs and our parents would have to resolve things," she said.
"But it was mostly easy to work with a twin creatively because you're on the same wavelength.
"You have the same strengths and the same weaknesses - but you work through that together."