Moving Postage Stamp Created with the World's Smallest and Shortest Film

The world's "smallest and shortest film" - lasting one second - appears on a new lenticular stamp created for the Dutch postal service TNT.

The stamp is a unique collaboration between advertising agency KesselsKramer, director Anton Corbijn and Dutch actress Carice van Houten. It features Van Houten pictured in front of a typical Dutch windmill on a polder landscape, the scene of which is a nod to a Dutch children's stamp from 1951.

Depending on the angle from which the stamp is viewed, an animation appears where Van Houten bites down on a man's middle finger.

The stamp is made using lenticular printing, whereby a series of sequential images are superimposed enabling the picture to seemingly transform by changing the angle from which it is viewed. "A postage stamp offers a very small surface area to work with, therefore it's even more challenging to be creative with that surface. Simultaneously we wanted to optimize the technical possibilities that the medium of a postage stamp offers," says Pieter Leendertse from KesselsKramer. Corbijn shot 120 frames of film of which 30 are used: the finger biting was a playful, spontaneous interaction that made it to the final cut.

The film was launched at the recent Dutch film festival in Utrecht.