O, Hunter Heart is a visual representation of the different experiences of participants in several interviews recorded around the UK. Carla MacKinnon explains that the storyline of O, Hunter Heart, which portrays a couple in a toxic relationship; is based on people sharing their personal experiences of falling in love, having an obsessive love, starting an affair, and being in short but intense relationships. These interviews uncovered a shared madness that people usually keep hidden, revealing an intensity of emotions that can last for decades.
In the film, a dollhouse is used as a symbol of a house and a gateway into the story. The film’s development began with nightly writing sessions, starting with a love story between a cat and an owl, which evolved in different directions with divergent versions. MacKinnon became fond of the characters in these separate narratives and collaborated with Hannah Peel and Christian Schaeffer to bring the project to life. The real-life stories gathered through interviews revealed themes of abusive relationships, coercion, and control, which were incorporated into the cat and owl characters’ behaviour in each narrative.
“Experimental animation often combines and mixes different modes of animation. This operates in two specific ways – first, to facilitate the multiplicity of personal visions an artist may wish to incorporate in a film, and second, to challenge and re-work orthodox codes and conventions and create new effects.”Wells, Paul. Understanding Animation, Taylor & Francis Group, 1998. In this film, Mackinnon used stop-motion and CGI to illustrate the vivid environments and sensations of animation directors like Jan Švankmajer, as well as features of live-action movies, including Kitchen Sink realism, Hollywood Noir, and ‘slow cinema.’