“Should You Meet A Lady In A Darkened Wood” by Daniel Stankler

Director/animator Daniel Stankler in London: “This is my graduation animation from the RCA. It’s a campy gothic fairytale and an analogy on the ways Tinder and social media allow us to objectify each other in the world of online dating.

“The film was animated frame by frame in Photoshop, and I took stylistic inspiration from mid-century illustrators like Mary Blair, whose work on early Disney concept art I’ve loved for as long as I can remember.

“It was my intention to use the Disney illustration style to highlight the ways in which the film undermines fairytale tropes – it’s dark, has a protagonist who’s also a serial killer, features a damsel who refuses to be distressed.

“The main character is a taxidermist, who takes living creatures and collects them, transforming them literally into objects. To my mind, this is similar to the ways in which the likes of Tinder allows us to ‘collect’ matches simply for the instantaneous gratification of being liked back.

School: Royal College of Art
Director/animator: Daniel Stankler
 
 

Immediate Byte