Prepared Insects

Willis O'Brien's European Shadow -- not content to animate apes and dinosaurs -- was Wladyslaw Starewicz (1882-1965). Where O'Brien built his pathos from latex and aluminum dural, Starewicz turned to the natural world; more specifically, to the dead natural world. Instead of machine-shopped armatures, Starewicz favored what he called prepared insects (spiders, beetles, flies, augmented with clasps and wires which would amaze a clockmaker) as well as the infrequent prepared animal. His short films are hauntingly dark, humorous, with a heady Slavic bite. Curiously, Willis O'Brien's father was an entymologist. And it's interesting to note, these two masters of animation-in-depth came up with their startling, ground-breaking processes due to the simple urge to see a boxing match; Willis O'Brien's happened to take the form of two heavyweights; Starewicz's, two stag beetles.