Blame it on the red bees: A true story

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(Direction / Illustration / Animation)

In 2010, Brooklyn beekeepers noticed their bees were producing red goo instead of honey. The solution to the mystery was in Dell's Maraschino Cherries factory, a company with an annual profit of $20 million, led by Arthur Mondella. Problem solved. The end of a cool story. Or not.

This tale served only as a starting point for another one, which we decided to tell in a true-crime animation about the secret life of the factory owner, who maintained a marijuana plantation in Dell's basement.

Sketches

Art Direction

We wanted to tell the story in a very dynamic way and it was important to capture the change from a curious fun story to something that ends up on a dark note.

We decided to go with a 2D animation for this project. The design of characters and the choice of colors were clear to us: this should be a contrast between the cherry and marijuana colors. After all, we ended up with a tale of cherries, drugs and tragedy.