NARRATOR:
Artists do research on every project. For A Bug’s Life, says Production Designer Bill Cone, people got down in the dirt to study the small world of insects all around them.
BILL CONE: You would just walk outside, and start going into the field next to the building and looking around. Eventually, we got a little video camera that we stuck on a stick, and just would run it along, inches above the ground, and so even if I took my kids to the park, I'd end up laying on the grass, staring at things really small. And my kids would be, ‘What are you doing, Dad?’
We just all learned to figure out what was it about the small world that we would like to use. And then, what was it about our world that we wanted maybe to hang on to, to help the imagery make more sense to us as humans.
NARRATOR:
Bill even got ideas from Georgia O’Keefe.
BILL CONE: I was inspired by her flower and plant paintings, where she took something very small and made it huge and important. And then, she found the most lyrical forms within those things. And it made you start thinking about what's lyrical in nature when you get down there? Like, it's the curl of a piece of grass.
NARRATOR:
Near the ground, the artists discovered, light comes through the leaves. You can see this just to the left of the case in the three pictures of a green leaf bent into a bridge.
Ants walking over it carry huge pieces of food. Through the leaf, you can see the shadows of their bodies. In the lower frame, Bill sketched the idea in marker, then tried it in pastel. Above is a detailed image Tia Kratter painted in acrylic.
These images are also explored in the Artscape installation. You’ll find it in The Media Gallery on the second floor.
