We wanted the animation to deliver the misdirection in the story. The whole film needed to feel warm, tactile and fuzzy – until the brutal twist is revealed.

To do this, we shot the sets and backgrounds in camera and then animated the characters within the world. The scenery was built by set design artists and then captured using studio lighting with motion control. After that, the characters were animated within it. We used 3D animation for its fluidity and expressive characteristics, and combined it with the richness from camera-captured scenes. This made it feel tactile and friendly, drawing you into a false sense of security that’s cruelly pulled away at the end.

Colour, in particular, helped to deceive the audience into thinking this is a beautiful story of friendship between cub and keeper, with light pastels at the beginning changing to darker colours as the betrayal is revealed.