Something Left, Something Taken is a charming and funny tale about paranoia in the Bay Area. It’s made by the Brooklyn-based husband-and-wife team of Max Porter and Ru Kuwahata, who are better known as Tiny Inventions. They worked on the film for nearly two-and-a-half years in between commercial jobs like this “Davy Crockett” music video for They Might Be Giants.
Max and Ru used nearly every trick in the bag to make this including stop-motion, pixilation, drawn animation on paper, After Effects, Flash and live-action puppets. The film mixes together these elements in a seamless manner to create a whimsical hand-crafted world featuring lots of felt, fabric, rope, and cardboard. My favorite touch is the crocheted eyelids of the characters.