“Little Lungs” is an animated pair of lungs eager to take on the world – but he smoked as a teenager and never grew to normal size. In each episode of the series, Little Lungs is in a situation in which his limited air capacity leads to his “tragicomic” demise.

Birthday was shot entirely in camera using stop motion animation to bring the characters and story to life. We wanted the message to have a visceral impact and believe the tangibility of photographed sets and models make the story resonate.

The characters and sets were all designed and built from scratch and involved a painstaking process of sculpting, molding, casting and scenic work to maintain the integrity of the world, where even custom miniature clothing was sewn and tiny hats were hand knit for the lungs. We decided to create effects like fire in-camera by animating painted foil as well as using on set lighting changes we were able to integrate low tech effects in a charming way.