Kitten Instinct

The story is visualized as a documentary-style reenactment of dinosaur behaviour. With a dreamy montage and cutting across animation styles (combining stop motion and drawn animation, with bits of 3D and live action), this speculative behavioural study on dinosaurs evolves towards an actual behavioural study of the contemporary domestic cat, enacted by dinosaurs.

This was Liesbeth’s graduation project for the animation department at KASK in Ghent. After previously completing the 2D animated film Biotopia, she decided to broaden her horizons with stop motion. The dinosaur, a form of life of which the true appearance and physiology is forever lost in time, has always been an obvious subject for (stop motion-) animation— the art of breathing life into the inanimate.

Cinematographer Yves Sondermeier brought anamorphic lens wizardry to the Kitten Instinct studio, along with many practical DIY solutions. This allowed us to achieve wonderful looking results with a –by time we actually started shooting– nonexistent budget. The image texture is reminiscent not only of sleazy widescreen B-movies (an ecosystem in which Harryhausen made some of his best) but also of the haunting dream worlds of the Quay brothers, to whom one sequence (T-Rex’ existential crisis before he pretty much becomes a cat himself) is greatly indebted.

Kitten Instinct’s music was composed and performed by Simon Halsberghe. It won the best soundtrack award at the 2017 Premier Plans festival and is available for streaming and downloading on https://gentletapes.bandcamp.com/album/kitten-instinct-o-s-t Aside from musically bringing the exact right mood to the right scenes, Simon’s synths sometimes seem to purr and roar as if actually alive.

If you’ve worked your way through the end titles of the film and if you’re wondering: yes, every dinosaur was actually voiced by its own human actor. The voice-timbres were heavily processed, but still… credit where it’s due.