A Jim Henson Style Horror Film?

In an earlier post I was thinking if an animated horror movie can actually work.

I think that it can, but you’ve got to be very careful with the method you use. While stop motion style 2D animations like South Park work for comedy or comedic horror, they would not fit for something you really want to scare people with, like The Wendigo Effect.

So I was thinking about puppets.

Not like the ones seen in Team America…

puppet animation team america

…but more like The Dark Crystal by Jim Henson.

Dark Crystal is a fantasy story with elves, monsters and a lot of fairy tale elements. I did not like it as a kid, because I thought that the heroe was somehow ugly. I felt the girl was very nice, though. But I was fascinated that these puppets looked like they were really alive.

dark_crystal_puppet_animation-johnbritoblog_02_low


 

Dark Crystal puppet animation Jim Henson


 

dark_crystal_puppet_animation-johnbritoblog_01


 


 

Maybe I could tell a story with puppets like these. But they would need to be animated via little stepper motors and remote controls, as I can’t efford to remove puppeters in green screen suits in postproduction.

Everything would have to be done in camera.

So I met Ben, one of my indie filmmaking friends who is a tech wizard and asked him to show me how those remote controlled and pre-programmed mini-motors can be used.
There is, in fact, a lot of programming involved, but this does not scare me that much, as I’ve learned Borland C++ and have played around with PHP, AS2 and others ages ago.

I’ll surely play around with things like these to see, if I can create a fast puppet creation workflow with it:

mini motors for puppet animation


 

adruino_02

Creating some Psychos

As I mentioned in an earlier post about The Wendigo Effect, my science fiction horror movie project, I am looking for a way to previsualize my shots in a faster way. The less I am distracted by drawing beautiful and detailed faces (which I like doing a lot), the faster I will be able to create my storyboards and play around with different blockings and shooting setups.

 

sketch for a horror graphic novel by John Brito

 

During my long train rides I am currently playing with a look pictured in the image above: Very simplified faces without noses :)

Maybe I should draw a graphic novel in this style, just for fun!


Testrunning the Machine

Beware! Spoiler alert!
Don’t read on unless you want to know too much about the story of Nostromo!

Some weeks ago we shot the last VFX footage for Nostromo. Storywise, we needed a huge machine that grows in some huge kind of cavern.

Doing it in 3D was an option in the initial stage, but we had to abandon this concept because we did not know how much effort the 3D people could put into the shot. Another option was filming it in 2 1/2 D, doing some matte paintings which would have been animated afterwards. But this would have been impractical considering the camera move we wanted to achieve.

So Mirjam, who had done all of the costumes for Nostromo, decided to do it the hard way. Doing a minitaure shot! It is a lot of work to create a minitaure that big. Not even speaking about organisational problems, like where will it be built? Where do we get the materials from? How will the minitaure be transported? The final miniature was going to be about 3 x 7 metres tall.

We met in Nostromo’s nuclear blast safe commando central, aka the underground chambers of Valentin, and built a quick mockup to test angle, lens, camera distance, camera move and the standing positions of the actors in the final shot. Then Mirjam built this little monster.

Below is a picture of Mirjam working on the miniature.

science fiction miniature preparing VFX shot

 

Coming up next: Shooting the Machine!


Can an animated horror movie actally work?

When I wrote the script for The Wendigo Effect, I had an animated science fiction horror movie in mind because I knew that I could never get together the money needed to produce a life action movie. At least not considering the location where The Wendigo Effect takes place.

 

City of Rott


 

By now I have come to understand why first time indie movies are always of the same kind: five young people walking into the woods or doing nasty things in an apartment: Young actors are considered cheaper than Tom Cruise. And if you shoot in the woods you do not need to build the corridors of the Death Star. Building a set costs money.

As neither of the two possibilities was an option for me I thought “Let’s make an animated horror movie instead.” And this is where Echoes came into life as a concept test for a full length project.

Now, lots of working hours later and knowing of a lot more mistakes I do not want to do again, I’m sitting here aboard the train that brings me to work, thinking about how to spend the weekends of my next three years. There are too many factors that can go wrong with an animated movie like Echoes. Especially in postproduction.

One option is doing everything in some kind of digital puppet animation style. Sitting in front of my computer, all on my own, minimizing the risks. That’s what FSudol, the creator of City of Rott, did. He worked as an assistant technical director on South Park and then decided to do his own film in his spare time. It took him 3000 working hours within two years. The result was an enjoyable full length animated horror comedy – which I honestly would have never bought if I was not into animation. And horror. And animetd horror movies. See the point?

city_of_rott_02

 

city_of_rott_03

 

The animation style of City of Rott is very crude, like the animations you know from South Park. It is surely a question of how much time (or money) you can put into creating one second of animation footage. Nonetheless, it was a huge effort from FSudol creating City of Rott, but I’m not sure whether I want to go this route. All the images from today´s post are from this film by the way.

…to be continued.

By the way: FSudol did another full length horror film called Dead Fury. I’ll check it out for sure! :)


Searching the Demon

When I write a script I usually have some very specific images in my head. Drawing them into one of my sketchbooks helps me define those images.

I would then note down some one-liners for every scene. Once this is done, writing the full script is the easy part.

However, for The Wendigo Effect, my science fiction horror movie, I´ve already written the full script some time ago. But I felt, that I have to accommodate to a more manageable budget. And as I will re-write the script anyway (no script is written, they are all re-written) I can work on the visual concept as well.

 

concept sketch for the science fiction horror movie The Wendigo Effect directed by John Brito

 

There are lots of sketched pages and I´ll scan some more as soon as everything is not as busy :)

In the meantime, let me know what you think about it in the comments!


A new Place to Work

a workspace to finish sci-fi short film

 

Finally! After more than half a year without a real working space, I was allowed to use some space where I can put my computer!

On the middle screen, you can see some of the live action green screen footage of Echoes, my animated science fiction short film.

Can´t tell you happy I am about this! :)

 

a workspace to finish sci-fi short film


Finding Victims for the Wendigo

I was looking for a faster way to previsualize my full length horror movie The Wendigo Effect.

Especially, because I know that I will have to do the whole preparation for the film on shaky trainrides :)
So I thought, that I had to get away from the naturalistic look, getting more simplified. I wanted to get more cartoony. This would safe time and let me concentrate on the story. For example: I would not get distracted with drawing beautiful hair for the female characters. …I love drawing hair.

face scribble by John Brito, test for graphic novel

 

So I started experimenting with different levels of details, different eye-positions, round faces, long foreheads…
Of course, the eyes were off sometimes, but who cares. You gotta allow yourself to make mistakes.

scribbles_faces_john-brito_01

 

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So, after lots of train rides I came up with this simplified manner of drawing faces. Let me know what you think of it in the comments :)

face scribble by John Brito, test for graphic novel

 

Oh, and a BIG THANKYOU to all those who shared the last article about Nostromo. I really appreciate it!


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