Animation director Hayley Morris reveals the creative thinking behind Doris the Octopus, the star of Prime Video’s new documentary about these mysterious eight-armed aquatic animals.
With its bobbly skin, boneless body and brilliant brain, the octopus is a fascinating sea creature. But our love of the species has been hitting 11 on the dial with Doris, an incredibly detailed Giant Pacific Octopus made of yarn, lace, beads, crepe paper, and more by Hayley Morris, an animation director with Nerd Productions. Animated using stop-motion, Doris features in OCTOPUS!, the new documentary series on Prime Video, narrated by Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
The programme combines live footage of octopuses in the wild with nearly 10 minutes of stop-motion sequences in an undersea world created by Hayley in Vermont, the team at the New York creative studio Mighty Oak, and production company Jigsaw. The handmade footage offers an alternative perspective and fosters a deeper connection with the species.
Adult Doris.
From the second Hayley saw the rough cuts, she wanted to be involved. “I think the main thing that jumped out to me was just how exciting of a project it was, and I couldn’t wait to be a part of it to show Doris’ life from birth to death in a beautiful handmade way,” she says.
From there, it was a deep dive into the lifecycle of an octopus – from its baby form as tiny semi-transparent fry bobbing along on the current to the powerful adult with its deep red-orange skin. The unique outer texture set Hayley thinking about how she might give Doris subtle human traits which audiences could relate to emotionally. Her work is always rich and textural – here, Hayley set out to create an animal that appears realistic from a distance but is full of fascinating, handmade details up close.
Hayley began with sketches, but a great deal of the character design was driven by experimentation, as she found the right materials and combined them in the best way to achieve her vision.
Doris as a baby.
“Through experimentation with materials, the character often emerges through the act of making,” says Hayley. “During the design phase, I sourced wool, yarns, lace, chiffon, and other textiles to prototype Doris’ head and tentacles. By trial and error, I discovered a blend of materials that captured the texture of octopus skin and the graceful, undulating movement of an underwater creature. I think the blend of all the fibres created a really beautiful tactile quality that, when lit and with movement, makes Doris feel very sweet.”
Inside Doris is a mechanical rig built by animation director Maxwell Sorenson, who also collaborated on the project. It consists of a ball-and-socket armature that enabled the animators to articulate the movement of Doris’s eight legs in tiny increments, mimicking the fluidity of an octopus’s undulating swimming stroke and the way it grapples with the seabed to pull itself along. The armature was covered in foam to give the body its shape, and then Hayley’s intricate outer skin was added.
Every detail was considered. The suction cups have a unique look achieved by wrapping a yarn-lined bead in crepe paper. It was time-consuming, but the effort paid off.
Hayley continues: “I knew I wanted to use glass eyes to capture the shiny look and convey a lot of emotional moments. The artist Minkyung Chung suggested using nail polish to create an iridescent look. She did a lot of experimentation with layering nail polish, and I love the final look of the eyes. I also wanted there to be a large eye to show the last stage of Doris’ life, so the eyes were very important.”
While the initial ambition was to shoot the animated segments in-camera – complete with an ocean bottom and rock formations that Hayley constructed – the production team ultimately used digital compositing. Hayley’s sets and Doris were shot separately, with the latter placed into the scenery, sized and colour corrected in post-production.
“I’m really proud of this project and think it’s a really important and beautiful film all around. I loved collaborating with my friends on this and creating something meaningful with them,” says Hayley.