Here we introduce Amanda & Sushi’s house, known in Japan as a minka. As James enters their world, we slowly fade in some color. This will be a theme throughout, to reinforce some generational and cultural contrast between James Bondáge and the contemporary characters he’s about to meet.

This was the first set I built specifically for this film, after being inspired by traditional Japanese architecture. Because my studio is tiny, most of my custom sets are 2x4x2 foot boxes constructed from plywood with removable walls, either painted or covered with tiled textures printed on paper.

The minka’s translucent rice paper sliding panels are backlit, which really makes the scene work with the color palette I designed. All the props you see were carefully curated for scale. The ceramic work on the patio is a fantastic test piece I bought from an old neighbor for $60. The cherry blossom tree is plastic, which drives home the very nature of this alternate universe.

POSERS is a prop-driven film. That means during a year of writing the script, if I could find an intriguing prop, I tried to find a way to write it into the story — no matter how absurdly.

And yes, those are giant murder hornets buzzing about. They were extremely difficult to animate because they kept falling apart! More on them later…