Maf the Dog for Faber & Faber

I was recently commissioned by publishers Faber & Faber to design, direct and animate a short film to promote the release of Andrew O'Hagan's new novel, The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog and of his Friend Marilyn Monroe. The book is a fictional autobiography of the Maltese dog given to Marilyn by Frank Sinatra in 1960, two years prior to her death.

Drawing inspiration from film titles and cartoons of that era and incorporating quotes from the novel itself, I produced this minute long whistle-stop tour of Maf's early life, tracing his journey from an English farmhouse kitchen to the company of the most famous woman in the world. The piece was conceived as a single sequence without obvious cuts, using colour transitions to reinforce the sense of movement.