“You don’t wanna end up like us”

Teens aren’t holding their breath for the next great vaping prevention message. For us, it’s be entertaining or be ignored. Our cast of taxidermied critters were crafted to resonate with teenagers’ fascination for the macabre and the latest social media trends. Making something they may want to share out of sheer comically morbid fascination.

Using real taxidermied animals preserved with formaldehyde, we created our expert panel on the dangers of vaping.

From the start, we wanted to do everything practically. For months, we sourced over 150 animals from taxidermy shops across America.

Each animal was written as an archetype and then cast. We wrote the “paranoiac” character and then found an animal that looked paranoid. In this case the turtle. We didn’t know the “Ringleader” was going to be a coyote until we found the coyote. And we still don’t know what the head on the wall is, but we knew it was perfect for its role as the “existentialist.” We then had the actors improv on the script channeling their animal.

The nine hero animals were then meticulously converted into animatronic controlled by puppeteers to could create just enough movement to convey emotion and direction, while still looking frozen— the legacy of formaldehyde.