If creepy crawlies freak you out, you might want to skip this video. But if you’re fascinated by animated films that do something unusual with their medium, take a few minutes to watch The Death of an Insect, an animated dance performed by bits of dead bugs.
No critters were harmed in the making of The Death of an Insect; all of the dead dancers were gathered, not killed by the filmmakers. Hannes Vartiainen and Pekka Veikkolainen scripted, directed, shot, animated, and edited the short, which is set to music by Joonatan Portaankorva. Here’s how the filmmakers describe the short:
In a lifeless urban landscape where time itself has stopped its crawl, a mad ballet is commencing and a newly hatched butterfly is about to die.
This tragic story was constructed using dead insects gathered from forgotten attics and tool sheds, between window panels and cobwebs. It combines a number of animation techniques from classic stop-motion animation to animated 3D models of x-ray CT-scanned insects.
They’ve also posted a making-of video:
The Death of an Insect [Vimeo via The Vimeo Blog]
