The Animation Show

When the Day Breaks (2x10)

Air date: Feb 18, 2005

After witnessing the accidental death of a stranger, Ruby seeks affirmation in the city around her, and finds it in surprising places. The technique chosen by Tilby and Forbis was arduous, to say the least: first, the basic action was shot on Hi-8 using human actors. Forbis wore a cardboard chicken beak while Tilby shot it. Then the footage was transferred to VHS tape, where individual frames were selected and printed using a video printer, and altered -- beaks, snouts and wings were added to turn humans into animals -- before filming the finished frames onto 35 mm. The result is animation that has a flickering, ghostly quality of an old negative filled with haunting images.