Lepidoptera - short film

The original idea came about in November 2021 - a complete story that I somehow half-lucidly dreamt in particularly insomniac 5am episode. The ambience and visual style was so poignant, that the next day I immediately scrawled down as much of the storyboard and concept art that I could remember. Interestingly, very little about the plot or the visuals have deviated from those first concepts I created, save for some necessary story and pacing edits, and it was a surprising experience for me to derive a film entirely from dream material (something I plan to try again).
I don’t think the idea came completely from nowhere however, as for a while, certain elements of the visual style and theme of insects had been on my mind thanks to listening to the music of Gotye, and the album Boardface in particular. The lo-fi audio sampling with a spacious and eerie atmosphere directly translated in my mind to that of collage art, with all of the grain and imperfections left in. Another inspiration was the dadaist artist Hannah Höch, whose face collage style informed the use of eyes in my own film.