Project Overview

During her Digital Creator Artist in Residence, Lily Zhang developed Bug, a stop motion short film that explores memory, identity, and transformation through handcrafted puppetry and tactile animation.

Grounded in her interest in emotionally rich storytelling and intimate, character-driven narratives, the project examines how memories resurface and reshape our sense of self. In Bug, a boy and a bug encounter one another resting in a field, and as their journeys begin to blur together, long-forgotten memories return in dreamlike fragments. The film reflects on connection, vulnerability, and the fragile boundaries between beings and the environment.

Lily’s residency plan centered on expanding her stop motion practice by refining puppet fabrication techniques, improving armature durability and articulation, and deepening her understanding of cinematic lighting and environmental storytelling. She aimed to create a fully realized short film while strengthening her technical skills in animation timing, movement performance, and post-production editing.

Throughout the residency, Lily designed and constructed original puppets, developed naturalistic outdoor sets, and experimented with expressive motion to convey emotional nuance through subtle gestures and pacing. The layered sound design and visual atmosphere were carefully crafted to support the film’s reflective tone and sense of quiet transformation.

The completed film, Bug (4 minutes 13 seconds, Canada, 2025), was later selected for the Canadian Showcase and screened at the Capitol Centre during the 10th Annual North Bay Film Festival in 2025, marking a significant milestone in the project’s development beyond the residency.

Photo Credit: Lily Zhang, still from Bug (2025)

Artist Bio

Lily Zhang is a Canadian-based stop motion animator and puppet maker looking to find the magic and whimsy in the ordinary. With a knack for the fantastical, she strives to create stories with a deep emotional core through the use of magical characters and abstract settings. By connecting to her culture and background, she hopes to find new ways to tell stories through this lens, being open to the experiences and stories others may share in collaboration for this goal. A graduate from Sheridan College in animation, her short film “Though the Attic’s Eye” is a coming-of-age stop-motion film that tells a meaningful story of overcoming fears and taking a leap of faith in the unknown. This film has been screened in many international film festivals and has won Best Student Film in the Oakville Festivals of Film and Art, Dean’s Choice Winner in the College of the Canyons International Animation Festival, and Best Animation at the Hudson Animation and Short Film Festival. She has also contributed to creating the stop motion film “Bridget”, which has been screened at the Ottawa International Animation Festival, the Montreal Stop Motion Film Festival, and the upcoming stop motion horror film “Pocket Princess”. She is currently based in Windsor, Ontario.