Related Images invites readers behind the scenes and into the sketchbooks of working filmmakers to learn more about their creative processes.
Phoebe Jane Hart’s Bug Diner is now showing on MUBI in many countries.
I made Bug Diner (2024) in my last year of my MFA in Experimental Animation at CalArts, with the support of my mentors Kangmin Kim, Pia Borg, Janie Geiser, and Stephen Chiodo. It was a wild and intense ride, strapped tight into a freaky roller coaster for the nine months it took to create this world and bring it to life.
The script came first, but the characters and their relationships were always there.
I fabricated the puppets, from wire armature to furry exteriors. But the insane, tiny, gorgeous sweaters—that was my sister Rose who offered to make them over the holidays, as I panicked it would never get done!
Thanks to the absolutely massive help from the coproduction designer / fabricator, Jalen Colbert (who was also a student at CalArts at the time), my original set drawings came to life with extreme accuracy and attention to detail.
Then came the animating—my god, the animating. I animated the short myself in about 60 days straight, living entirely in the madness of my tiny CalArts studio…
I had the whole film planned down to small details, as animation takes a long time to create and I had limited time to complete it. I enjoy looking back and comparing the plans to the final result. This is the animatic/storyboard, made up of scribbly sketchbook drawings, compared to final shots. I couldn’t believe how it came so close to how I saw it in my head.
