From there Director James Cunningham embarked on a labour of love and made the film with a tiny support crew keeping him company through nearly five thousand hours of post production. He camped out in the spare room at home for most of the year then took over a corner of an office at work, hand-crafting the film with loving detail but always focused on the story.

The driving ethos of the film was to create an emotive, affecting and dramatic CGI animation. The approach James took was to harness the gold that actors bring with their performance to take the CGI short genre into a new realm. Poppy is not cute, quirky or a film for children.

The Director's last CGI short film Infection competed in competition at Cannes, Sundance and 20 other international Film Festivals. Infection is one of the most successful short films ever made in association with the New Zealand Film Commission.

Directors Notes

Can you explain what attracted you to the story?

When I first read the script I had a strong emotional reaction. It is a small story about powerful events. I thought that it could be done well with animation. When I spoke to the writer and he told me that it was based on actual events, well that was the icing on the cake. I would like to thank the writer, David Coyle, for letting me make his family's story into this film. It is a great story that drew everyone to the project like a rolling snowball.