Shooting Tiger & Swan
When I started planning for Tiger & Swan I wanted to work with textures, materials and taxidermy that resonated with the cloths and outfits suggested for the film. When scouting for locations it soon became apparent that I was looking for two contrasting sets: a warm wood built barn filled with hey stacks and a cool, concrete underpass with a geometric feel to allow graphic compositions.
I came up with a number of scenarios, sketching them out over the locations shots and drafted the themes of animal prints and camouflage textures into the story.
We shot the film over one day and were allowed to use the amazing pieces of taxidermy by no one less then Peter Morass, who won the European championships in taxidermy 2004. He came on set and helped us to prep them and the only thing we had to hope for was no gusts of wind during the takes, as it propelled the suspended swan around the underpass. We were lucky.
Postproduction took a little while and the folks at Wildruf put in a lot of hours and did a fantastic job to get the visual effects right. It was a great project and I am thrilled with the result. People are intrigued: Are these layered photographs, but can I see them just moving a little? Are the animals 3D? Can it be that the tigers are copulating? … YES, they are!