WATCH: Oscar-Shortlisted Stop-Motion Short ‘Lost & Found’ Now Available Online

A bumbling knitted dinosaur must completely unravel itself to save the love of its life in the award-winning short film directed by Andrew Goldsmith and Bradley Slabe.

Following a successful festival run — and a win at the Australian Academy Awards — Oscar-shortlisted Lost & Found is now available to watch online, along with a terrific behind-the-scenes video that delves into the making of the film.

Directed by Andrew Goldsmith and Bradley Slabe and produced by Lucy Hayes at Wabi Sabi Studios and pixel/melbourne, the seven-minute Lost & Found shares an adorable yet tragic love story between a fox and a bumbling knitted dinosaur which must completely unravel itself to save the love of its life.

After premiering at the Berlin International Film Festival, the stop-motion animated short went on to win the Yoram Gross Animation Award at the Sydney Film Festival and the Audience Award for Best Animated Short at the Austin Film Festival. Funded by Screen Australia, Lost & Found is nominated for the upcoming Annie Awards, and was recently shortlisted for a nomination for Best Animated Short Film at the 91st Oscars. Oscar nominations will be announced January 22, 2019.

Four years in the making, the production for Lost & Found saw a full-size restaurant custom-built as a modular set for stop-motion filming, several hand-crafted puppets that were purpose-built for different animation situations, and even a working sushi train that was completely disassembled for hand animating. Every shot was planned and programmed with a custom stop-motion rig, many featuring complicated dolly or hand-held like movement.

Every single element in front of the lens including water is hand-animated by lead animator Samuel Lewis. Heat-warped acetate, bubble wrap, hair gel and “personal” lubricant made for a suitable water substitute allowing waves and splashes to remain rigid long enough to capture desired frames.

Watch the full short in the player below, and then keep scrolling for a behind-the-scenes look at how Lost & Found was brought to life:

Goldsmith has created award-winning films and television content, most recently a short for Sesame Street. With ten years’ experience in animation and visual effects and directing shorts and music videos, he has developed a stylistically striking voice that has been honored by the likes of SXSW and Rolling Stone magazine. Slabe is a Gold AWGIE-winning screenwriter and director who honed his craft working in story development for features such as the Maya the Bee Movie, and is now a writer of children’s films and television for international audiences, most recently the critically acclaimed Kitty is Not a Cat.

With films that have played at high-profile festivals around the world, Hayes’ television credits include the animated series Supa Phresh for Nickelodeon, and the Screen Australia-funded web series Movement. In 2016, she was awarded a coveted Creative Talent Suite Placement at Lin Pictures in Hollywood. Hayes has worked across the development of Disney’s live-action Aladdin, production of the LEGO films and Stephen King’s IT. She is currently developing Main Street, a television series based on the best-selling novels by Ann M. Martin.