Plague Dogs is a documentary short film concerning the continuing plague epidemic in the prairie dog population of the American southwest. Director August Anderson required a title sequence to complement the call to action film; this piece plays on disease contraction to "Danse Macabre." Plague Dogs screened at the Gray's Reef Film Festival in Savannah, Georgia in February 2017 and will continue running the festival circuit in the coming year.
Process
Topics: Prairie dogs, fleas, and yersinia pestis (the bacteria responsible for the Plague)
Inspiration: Conway's Game of Life and Lillian F. Schwartz's Mutations
Initial Concept
Flat graphic dots depict the multiplicative nature of disease spread, the only constraint being textual forms of credits, containers of sorts that require assistance to be completely effective.
Revisions
Through layout and motion tests, a simpler approach was suggested in the vein of Garson Yu's An Inconvenient Truth titles. Limiting the extraneous graphics, the design was streamlined to using the text graphically and exploring more possibilities in movement. Courier was chosen to lend a further quality of official documentation.
Final Screen Captures
