• Organisation: Arludo

• Target Audience: School Children

• Platforms: Youtube, Facebook, Instagram

Reading the Wikipedia entry on snapping turtles is enough to develop an instant phobia. “Common snapping turtles are not an ideal pet. Their neck is very flexible, and can bite their handler even if picked up by the sides of their shell. Their claws are as sharp as those of bears and cannot be trimmed. The turtle uses its paws like a bear for hunting and slicing food, while biting it.” Terrifying! Soleille Miller a scientist specialising in Evolutionary and Population Genomics had a scary confrontation with a snapping turtle in the lab. We designed an animation to share her turtle trauma.

When not fending off snapping turtles Soleille can be found working towards a PhD in Evolutionary and Population Genomics. She is skilled in applied behavior analysis, population genetics, and analysis of various sequencing methods including DArTseq, ChIPseq, and RNAseq.  She is an aspiring bioinformatician who is passionate about using sequencing technologies to understand and improve the world around us. A great ambassador for all youngsters aspiring to work in STEM Soleille is also the narrator of this film and a passionate science communicator.

A few of us at Binkyfilms joked about developing vicarious trauma during the creation of this animation and we wanted to make sure our audience didn't too. We decided to contrast the terrifying encounter with vibrant and stylised visuals. Having never seen a snapping turtle in real life before they took on a kind of mythical status for us, so we transformed the conventional clean white science lab with a steam punk style fantasy vibe. The end result is a fresh and vibrant film that invites everyone in on the horrors of a snapping turtle encounter.