What is the film about?

A humoristic adaptation of a popular medieval theme “dance of death”. A patchwork of symbols illustrates human passing. Following a three-legged character we discover a murky world of the deceased. Seemingly separate elements turn out to be part of a perfectly synchronized organism.

What influenced it?

What I like about animation is a kind of visual game based on ambiguity of forms which are seen. Such thinking has its ground in the Polish School of Poster, which I am still strongly fascinated with. I am inspired with its characteristic concise, simple form, I admire the accuracy of expression and so common, ironic approach to the subject. An important feature of the “Danse Macabre” is a large dose of humor. I am a very optimistic person and in topics of my movies I am also trying to find a lighter, funny side. Although light, witty form my work is always preceded with a deep analysis. I am inspired by the theory created by Rudolf Arnhejma whose book gave me the basis to create what I call the art of penetrating, searching. It’s the idea of a constant search for the simplest embodiment of the topic.

A little background information...

Danse Macabre is a short animation that I created as part of my diploma at The Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in Jerome Neumann studio animation. It is a kind of continuation my first animation “Cementary”, in which for the first time, I referred to the theme of the cross anthropomorphism. In Danse Macabre I go one step further and develop the topics touched in Cementary – this is my personal, very subjective interpretation of the classic theme of dance of death. I decided to show that medieval dance in a new and a bit perverse way.

How was the film made?

It’s a 2D computer animation. The whole project was created in Adobe After Effects with support of Photoshop.