Hundreds of Beavers

The film was made for around $150,000, completed by a six-person crew over twelve weeks across two winters, nine of them in northern Wisconsin woods at minus twenty degrees. The idea came from three things. Mike Cheslik had his After Effects skills, his knowledge of snow, and his lead actor Ryland Tews's talent for falling over. The animals are people in mascot suits, which removed the need for different actors and any hair or makeup on set. All the costumes were bought online for roughly ten thousand dollars in total. A tarpaulin served as the green screen, and Cheslik finished the film himself in After Effects. Jean Kayak, a drunken applejack seller whose distillery is burned down by vengeful beavers, turns to fur trapping. The film is black and white, has no dialogue, and works entirely in the silent slapstick idiom, with video games and martial arts films among its influences. They self-distributed it and took twice the budget in cinemas. Who it is for: viewers who like slapstick, live action running on cartoon logic, and films that set their own rules. Who it is not for: anyone looking for narrative. It proceeds as a run of gags, and its repetitive structure runs long for some.