Adam The Ant’s filmmaking team had a critical storytelling problem. They needed to establish their titular giant radioactive ant as full-bodied character on screen in the opening moment of their film. The only problem? Adam only existed as an animatronic puppet head and a pair of practical legs and the production had no time and a very limited budget to build the rest of him.

We provided the solution, designing and fabricating a custom three-dimensional ant shadow puppet for the film’s opening title, and supervised the execution of the effect in-camera and on location at Toronto’s historic Fox Theatre. We also assisted with the performance of the animatronic ant used to interact directly with actor Allie MacDonald on set, helping to ensure the creature’s presence felt consistent across both the stylised title sequence and live-action moments.

The result was a brief, but wonderful shadow puppet effect that felt exactly right: properly cinematic, proudly practical, and just campy enough to be a tribute to the classic movies that inspired it.