Method Studios helped create the gnarled and twisted forest in Little Minx. The director wanted a mix of sub-tropics and Pacific Northwest plants and for the garden and forest to feel exotic yet familiar.

Sabrina Elizondo, vfx producer at Method, admits that it was a challenging project. "It was also completely irresistible because the creative leeway we were offered was a unique experience," Elizondo says. "Just about every live-action scene was shot on bluescreen, so defining the look was technically up to our team. The opportunity also lent itself to a close working-relationship with the director, Phil, and that collaborative effort really made a big difference."

According to vfx leads Boyd and Caudron, the first significant challenge came with creating a ghostly figure of the Water Man who seems to simply pluck the girl from her idyllic environment. Admitting to being influenced by Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter (1955), Caudron and the 3D team were eager to create the Water Man, paying close attention to texture and the look and feel of the water.

"Phillip had this idea of a man made out of water, someone who is not quite there," Caudron says. "It was essential that he be a palpable presence, but also that he seem otherworldly. It was quite a challenge to appropriately balance the real and surreal worlds."

To produce a realistic image of the Water Man, the animation team scanned the live actor into a 3D model, which gave them the man's complete geometry with which to work. Caudron says that the 3D model was a huge help. "We were able to apply all our lighting and water effects in a series of layers. The character ended up being very layer-heavy, but it sped things up considerably."

"The Water Man was so tricky," Scott says. "Seb worked his butt off for free for months. But he added so much poetry with his water textures." Van says he was pleased with the Water Man effects, saying, "Too often water effects look like liquid metal. We were really trying to make something innovative."

Van also believes the film's forest met his vision, and says, "It feels real to me."

It was up to Boyd to create the gnarled and twisted forest that represents the hardships of life. Prior to the shoot, Van spent a several months researching dozens of nature photographs -- a mix of plant life from both the sub-tropics and the Pacific Northwest. Van, who grew up in Hawaii and Portland, wanted the garden and forest to feel exotic yet familiar, whimsical yet grounded.

"Forest scenes are notoriously difficult to render, due to all the detail," notes Boyd. "We started looking for new ways to work and new things to learn. Almost everything was shot against bluescreen, with just a few plants and shrubs around the set, so it was up to us to create the forest. To render the entire thing, I used a system called 'delayed reads.' With the geometry of one 3D tree, we were able to have the system procedurally create unique trees at render time. While 3D trees are typically so dense in information that you can't have more than one open at a time, we were able to render out 100 or so each time. It was tremendously helpful."

Remarkably, the work was performed quickly, on a very modest budget, with Producer Scott and Line Producer Kris Eber overseeing the project. "The biggest challenge was the speed with which this film was made," Van says. "It was a labor of love, and completed on a very tight budget." The film took two days of shooting -- including set builds -- and several month of post-production.

It helped that Van came to the set prepared, using storyboards and an animatic to assist in matching visuals to the song and to determine where the cuts would be. "The more prepared you are, the more receptive you are to inspiration," comments Van.

As for Little Minx Exquisite Corpse: Come Wander With Me, it will be offered, along with the other Little Minx films, for viewing at festivals as well as on the Internet -- and that makes both Van and Scott happy. Scott says, "We wanted to create short films that promote creative freedom… and that people will see."

Janet Hetherington is a writer and cartoonist who shares a studio in Ottawa, Canada with artist Ronn Sutton and a ginger cat, Heidi.