JOHN BERGIN

IO

2011-11-01T20:03:00.003-05:00

IO comic is available here.

You can check out a preview and buy a digital download here.

The book is a restoration of the comic originally printed in Caliber Presents. "On the terraformed moon, IO, David Petrie and his fellow soldiers wage endless war against an intractable foe."

24 pages. Full Color. By John Bergin and James O'Barr.

Here's the cover and a couple sample pages (click to enlarge):

MEDICINE BOX

2011-10-31T19:50:00.000-05:00

Here's a couple panels from a design I just completed for Robert Rich's new album Medicine Box. You can get the album here. It's a great album. One of my new favorites.

FROM INSIDE at ANCA

2011-02-13T17:41:00.000-06:00

From Inside will be screening at this year's Fest Anča, International Animation Festival in Slovakia. That link is to the archive of last year's Fest Anca. Check it out. Awesome festival. Wish I could experience the Animation Karaoke Battle that would accompany From Inside... ie: a headless horse galloping back and forth with rider wearing a GaGa meat suit... scored with feedback. GO.

FAST ART

2010-12-28T12:40:00.004-06:00

Most days I manage to find 15-30 minutes (sometimes not all at once) to sketch, scribble, or steal something for no particular reason.

Follow the randomness at There Is No Dog, my online sketchbook.

If you are new:

This blog where I post new work - usually one or two posts per month.

My sketchbook is where you'll find something new every day.

My web site is an archive of published work - illustration, music, comics. For the most part it is older, out-of-print material (I am not always free to post new work and in deference to publishers or labels trying to sell a book or album, I usually hold off making new stuff available for free for some period of time... but everything ends up there... eventually).

FIGURE (b)

2010-11-24T16:45:00.000-06:00

Recent figure drawing.

BEAT TO A PULP

2010-09-30T00:51:00.005-05:00

Recent cover design for Beat To A Pulp -- an anthology of twenty-seven short stories.

James O'Barr did the cover illustration and I ruined it.

The folded and torn edges come from my hardcover copy of the limited edition Donald M Grant publication of Stephen King's Dark Tower: The Gunslinger. Which I received as a gift when I was about 15 years old. Yes, that's the edition that goes for 1/2 a new car today... if it's in mint condition... which mine isn't. Because I was 15 and I thought reading was better than collecting. I still do. The book's beat-to-a-pulp condition attests to the fact that it was a meaningful gift I enjoyed reading. And it's the only book of the series that I can tolerate. Except for the one with Philip Hale illustrations (because of the Philip Hale illustrations)*.

The other rips & tears come from a 1934 edition of The Postman Always Rings Twice. Which has one of the greatest opening lines ever. "They threw me off the hay truck about noon." (and the remake has one of the best Kitchen Table scenes ever).

Here's a few of the raw elements I used and the original art. The cardboard w/ duct tape is something I scanned about 15 years ago and have used in hundreds of illustrations and designs as a grain overlay.

LINKS

An early review of Beat To A Pulp

Beat To A Pulp will be available soon. Check here.

*Did you know Philip Hale was an official portraitist (that a word? is now) for Prime Minister Tony Blair? The guy who created Johnny Badhair also painted a portrait that will hang in Westminster forever.

Awesome **

** I thought that was a Philip Hale / Johnny Badhair / Tony Blair mash-up, but it's a Doctor Who / Johnny Badhair mash-up. Oh well. 4 point awesomeness deduction.

FIGURE (a)

2010-07-08T20:05:00.000-05:00

Recent figure drawing.

ESCAPE VELOCITY... or not

2010-06-23T23:56:00.000-05:00

Drawing for a band advert.

NEW BLOG v OLD BLOG

2010-06-21T22:18:00.007-05:00

Moving my old blog to this blog. The old blog was a .mac site. It was a pain to maintain (I just checked the link to it for this post, and it appears to be broken. Again).

For the past few years this blog has been exclusively about From Inside. I will be using it as my main blog now. Non-From Inside stuff. Like the painting above that looks like nothing I would ever paint. But then, again, neither does this:

TRAILER

2010-06-19T16:59:00.005-05:00

New trailer on the From Inside website in preparation for the DVD release.

Also: what will probably the last festival screening for the film: Fantaspoa.

QUARTERLY UPDATE

2009-12-28T19:02:00.004-06:00

Screenings:
From Inside is an official selection for the 2010 Fantaspoa Film Festival in Brazil.

Release update:
We're this close (<---->) to getting From inside off my computer and in front of your eyes. We are finalizing an agreement with a distributor. Details soon (have I said that before?).

One of the final preparations is the making of a new second score. This one by the great Brett Smith, with guests. Image above is from one of Brett's sessions. As his guest performers are confirmed, I'll post info -- and maybe a track or two if I can... and be sure to click Brett's link -- two new AMAZING Caul albums just released.

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SMART CINEMA

2009-09-20T19:17:00.005-05:00

From Inside has been playing every week through the month of September at Smart Cinema in Amsterdam. One more week left.

From Inside won an Honorary Mention at the SOPOT Film Festival in Poland. Thanks to everyone at the festival for screening my film.

Also had a great screening this month at DragonCon2009.

News about the film's availability coming soon (you'll see it soon, I promise).

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IMPRESSIONS

2009-06-24T21:56:00.004-05:00

Very nice write-up of From Inside on the ASIFA East blog. LINK.

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SPOILER ALERT INTERVIEW

2009-05-31T23:36:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Toni Pennacchia for Spoiler Alert Radio.

The interview is here.

My speaking skills for the interview were approx. 2 cups of coffee to the wind (ie: depressed-sounding, but with lots of words -- it takes about 4 cups to make me sound like I’m not talking from under a dark staircase).

I had fun talking with Toni and I encourage you to page back through the Spoiler Alert archives and listen to her other interviews. I’ve discovered some great work there!

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JACOB BURNS SCREENING

2009-05-23T19:01:00.003-05:00

From Inside will be screening at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville NY. The screening is Thursday, June 11 @ 5:30pm, 7:30pm, 9:45pm.

If you're in the area, I encourage you to check the film out at this awesome venue.

More info here.

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MORE GENERALNESS

2009-04-19T22:20:00.005-05:00

Both the Kansas City FilmFest and Independent Film Festival Boston web sites have gone live. At the sites, you can check schedules and purchase tickets.

In Kansas City, From Inside screens Friday, April 24, 7:15pm at the AMC Mainstreet 2 (1400 Main Street KC MO).

I'll be attending the screening. If the fest allows me to do so (I'm not a danger to patrons. Honest.), I will introduce the film and say hello. So if you're in the area...

In Boston, From Inside screens Saturday, April 25, 7:15pm at the Brattle Theater.

In Amsterdam From Inside screens April 24 at 20:10.

From Inside will also be screening April 30 at the Dead By Dawn festival in Edinburgh, Scotland.

April. From Inside month.

...and, as always, check out my current blog at Grinder Tool & Die where I constantly embarrass myself and confuse people.

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IN GENERAL

2009-02-20T16:30:00.003-06:00

The series of From Inside giclee prints is now complete. All prints available in the From Inside store.

From Inside screenings added to the schedule for this spring:
IFFBoston
Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival
Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival
Kansas City FilmFest

A nice write-up on Boing Boing.

...and, finally, I invite you to follow my current blog at Grinder Tool & Die.

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ENGINE PRINT

2009-01-22T01:55:00.003-06:00

The fourth From Inside print is now available.
Click into the STORE at the official From Inside website.

This one is smaller than the previous prints. 8 x 10. Signed & numbered edition of just 50.

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APOCALYPSE PRINT

2009-01-10T21:22:00.003-06:00

The third From Inside print is now available.
Click into the STORE at the official From Inside website.

Two more prints after this one -- out before spring.

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GRINDER TOOL & DIE

2009-01-09T01:37:00.010-06:00

My posts on this blog used to be so exciting. I just noticed the last dozen or so are all festival announcements -- which pales in comparison to exciting things like polygon counts or walking.

That's the way filmmaking goes... Making a film is intense and all-consuming. You agonize and toil for a year, two years, or three years, or a hundred years... then it's over one day.

So; thanks to all festivals who have screened (or will be screening) From Inside. It's nice to have you here at the end. Even though blogging about you does not make for exciting text, like, say fog does.

Couple of upcoming From Inside announcements that I'm very excited about. In the meantime, I invite you to check out my official web site, Grinder Tool & Die where you can see how exciting my non From Inside work is. At least the music is free.

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FFF PREVIEW

2009-01-02T10:52:00.005-06:00

Future Film Festival in Italy has posted a preview of the films they will be screening. Check it out HERE.

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GERARDMER 2009

2008-12-21T23:18:00.004-06:00

From Inside will be screening at the 2009 edition of the Gerardmer Fantastic Film Festival in France. The festival takes place January 28 - February 1, 2009.

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QUIET EARTH REVIEW

2008-12-03T01:25:00.002-06:00

Great review of From Inside from one of my favorite sites:
QUIET EARTH

SLIFF

2008-11-25T10:21:00.004-06:00

Couple shots from the From Inside screening at the St Louis International Film Festival, Nov 23. Thanks to everyone who came, thanks to the fest for programming us.

Next screening is scheduled in January (Future Film in Italy)... details to follow.

AFTERLOO

2008-11-19T00:09:00.003-06:00

Had a great time at the Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema. Inspired programming, rabid animation fans and Grave of the Fireflies on a big screen. What more could you ask for? Snow? They had that, too. Thanks to everyone from the fest for making my visit awesome.

Seeing Grave of the Fireflies on a big screen was like seeing it for the first time -- lots of detail I've completely missed all these years (Setsuko is playing rock/paper/scissors with her reflection... not teasing fish!). Panel discussion afterwards was great -- learned lots about one of my favorite films (never knew it was based on a book by Akiyuki Nosaka).

and...

Evangelion is the giant robot movie and I'm a dope for not knowing this already.

and...

Go here to explode your head. I did. It was nice.

UPDATE 11/19
Couple of links to coverage of the festival:
Midnight Madness Screenings (FPS Magazine)
Grave of the Fireflies (FPS Magazine)
First Animated Feature (FPS Magazine)
Prince Achmed (FPS Magazine)
Cinema Verdict
Cord Weekly

FROM INSIDE at SLIFF

2008-11-13T00:36:00.003-06:00

One more imminent screening to note:

From Inside will be screening at the St. Louis International Film Festival.

The festival runs from Nov 13-23. From Inside will be screening Sunday, Nov. 23, 3:30pm at the Tivoli Theatre 3. Details here.

I will not be at the screening, but my totally 100% capable stand-in, Dustin Blegstad, will be there. Dusty, as you know -- if you are no stranger to this blog -- puts the "From" in From Inside. I don't know what I meant by that, but I will say he is responsible for every sound you hear in From Inside... and that photo above is all I could find when I googled "Dusty." Sorry.

FROM INSIDE AT LEEDS & WATERLOO

2008-11-12T23:54:00.004-06:00

From Inside will be screening at LEEDS this weekend.

Showing 1: 14 Nov 18:45, The Carriageworks: Studio, £4.50/£3.50
Showing 2: 15 Nov 13:00, The Carriageworks: Studio, £4.50/£3.50

Full details here.

Also screening this weekend at the Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema... and I'll be there.

23:30, Saturday November 15, 2008. Details here.

UTOPIALES GRAND PRIX

2008-11-03T17:47:00.002-06:00

From Inside has won the Grand Prix of the Utopiales 2008.

Thank you very much to the festival and Jury!

Great films were programmed for the Utopiales International Competition -- Before the Fall, The Signal, Senki, Bruise 52, Three Minutes. I am very happy to have been a part of it.

Read more about the fest, the jury, and Nantes.

WATERLOO FESTIVAL FOR ANIMATED CINEMA

2008-10-27T22:41:00.004-05:00

The Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema web site is now live.

LINK to WFAC for the complete schedule. I'll be there to present From Inside. Hope to see you there, too.

Highlights of the festival for me will be getting a chance to see Grave of the Fireflies on the big screen. It's been a few years since I last saw the film, and (coincidentally) I've been thinking about it lately. Grave of the Fireflies is the only Studio Ghibli film my two kids haven't seen yet. They are huge Miyazaki fans, so I feel as though I've been depriving them... but I wanted to wait until they were old enough to feel the beautifully heavy weight of this story. It's finally time!

I'm also looking forward to Quirino Cristiani: the Mystery of the First Animated Movies, Nocturna, We Are The Strange, Genius Party, and Rebuild of Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone

From Inside screens Saturday, November 15 at 11:30pm at the Gig Theater.

UTOPIALES LIVES

2008-10-27T20:56:00.006-05:00

The UTOPIALES web site is now live.
Looks like an awesome film festival.
If you are in Nantes, check it out. If not, visit the site.

LINK to UTOPIALES

...and, again, I have to note how brilliant the babelfish translator is. Everything I write needs to go through this filter. Here is the Utopiales From Inside write-up translated from French to English:

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"The atomic apocalypse left behind it a burned Ground, strewn with turned russet corpses, crashed to pieces bricks and ploughed up buildings. Only survivors of this pathetic humanity, passengers of a vapor express train, which advances without precise goal, inlassablement, in the middle of the famine and of devastation. Where do they go? Nowhere, and without round trip ticket. Only one certainty: The EEC, one of embarked, carries a child who will be perhaps the last. Only, it tests costs which costs to cling to this chimerical hope… Adapted of his graphic novel éponyme, John Bergin delivers here a powerful meditation on the rather illusory perenniality of our companies, as much as a wild parabola against the myth of progress at all costs. Price of best cartoon film in Sitges in October 2008."

--

That is now the official From Inside synopsis.

Russet corpses:

FROM INSIDE at FUTURE FEST

2008-10-16T00:16:00.001-05:00

From Inside will be screening at the 11th edition of Future Film Festival in Italy.

Check out the link above. Awesome film festival.

LESS PEOPLE

2008-10-16T00:01:00.003-05:00

Kind of a travelogue-y thing to do, but here are a few shots from Sitges. Strange that almost every photo I took in Sitges is empty of people. That was not intentional. There were a lot of people there. Well... maybe it's not that strange, actually. If you need someone to turn a major resort location in Spain into a ghost town, that would be me.

SITGES: FROM INSIDE BEST ANIMATED FILM

2008-10-13T23:39:00.003-05:00

From Inside wins Best Animated Film at SITGES 08.
LINK

Complete list of winners:
LINK

Thanks to everyone at Sitges. I had a great time at the festival. In a place so full of bright colors, sunlight, gracious people and good food, it was nice to find such a deep appreciation for all things dark, depressing and disturbing.

DEAD CHANNELS REVIEW

2008-10-10T19:29:00.003-05:00

Here's a review of the From Inside screening at the 2008 Dead Channels festival in SF. The rain is perfect:
WEDNESDAY'S KORNER

SITGES

2008-10-10T19:21:00.001-05:00

My schedule for October 11:

10:00 : Sita Sings The Blues. Looking forward to this one. Nina is a fellow sufferer (Animartyr), who, when she says "I made this film by myself." means it. You'll see maybe 3 or 4 names in the credits. What? No Render Wranglers? No Character Designers? No Colorists?
11:45 : Anamorph
17:15 : Holy shit I will be seeing Miyazaki's Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea
19:45 or 22:45 or City of Ember or Religulous

SITGES

2008-10-10T04:46:00.004-05:00

My schedule for October 10.
12:45 : Dead Space
16:30 : The Burrowers
18:30 : Idiots and Angels
22:45 : Let The Right One In

Couple of From Inside reviews on-line (via always-accurate Babelfish translation):

"John Bergin spent to lengths years in front of his computer..."

"John Bergin shapes the trip with impressive images..."

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UPDATE October 10:

The Burrowers: Any time a genre film is set in the 1800's I'm there. Great performances, great photography, perfect color grading. Watch for Doug Hutchison's performance the first time his authority is undermined. Love it when actors take you someplace unexpected.

Idiots and Angels: First time I've seen Bill Plympton's work on a big screen. The size and the light did great justice to his quick, scribbly lines. Felt like watching an animated film on a huge 20' X 50' piece of paper. Lots of hallmark Plympton visual puns.

Let The Right One In: Another film that's as great as you've heard. Tomas Alfredson introduced the film saying it was made at great expense of time... love... and silence. The silence was the best part of the film. If I were releasing the soundtrack to Let The Right One In it would just be 74 minutes of the sound of snow falling -- with occasional boots crunching over ice.

Wandered around Barcelona a little. Easy city. They need better street signs, but the ornamentation found everywhere more than makes up for it. A nice change of pace from the bluntness of home; "You Are Here!" (Americans show up to a knife fight with a gun, Spaniards show up to a knife fight with a bejeweled sword, satin pants, suede boots, and great food. It would be a draw).

SITGES

2008-10-08T19:51:00.005-05:00

Holy shit, does Sitges loves science fiction and horror. Amazing festival. It's been an honor to bring my depressing little film to a place with such an intense love for all things dark. Two From Inside screenings were held at Cine El Retiro, a 600 seat theater located in the center of Sitges by the sea. El Retiro has a great, relaxed traditional feel with awesome projection and sound quality. From Inside never looked so great.

El Retiro from outside and from inside:

Have seen many great films worth recommending. Absolutely loved The Good, The Bad, The Weird. Incredible cinematography -- my favorite shots being those from a camera mounted to the side of gatling gun blasting away... puts all other shakey-cam shots to shame. This one also bears out my theory re: Trains = Failsafe Cinematography. Riot of a story, too. Why it took so long for someone to blend a spaghetti western with Road Warrior is beyond me -- a match made in heaven (or in the desert). Also: kick-ass score. Think it was picked up by Sony, so maybe it will be widely available. If not, seek it out.

Also greatly enjoyed JCVD (it's as great, if not better, than you've heard). I only speak a few words of French. Despite understanding only 1/2 the dialog of Van Damme's levitating soliloquy, it was still deeply moving.

Dante 01. I have always loved the production design of French science fiction. It has a sense of grabbing whatever is at-hand from a hardware store or toy store, and somehow assembling the plain every-day parts into something otherworldly. I think the French were DV rebels from the time before there was even DV. The rocket-launcher employed by Bruce Willis in The Fifth Element was just a model rocket from a toy store. And it was awesome. Dante 01 is worth watching for set-design alone. Loved the switches, knobs, walls and costumes... and nice puke as well. Clear puke. Best kind.

ART IN THE AGE OF STEAM

2008-09-29T22:57:00.005-05:00

There are few things that look great on film no matter how they're shot. Trains are one of those things. Color, black & white, HD, SD, from above, from below, old, new, moving or idling. Doesn't matter. Point a camera at a train and you win.

Trains also never fail in paintings. If you're in the Kansas City area, check out this exhibit.

Another thing that looks great on film no matter what: Garbage Trucks. Anyone know of an Art In The Age of Trash exhibit?

FROM INSIDE at LEEDS 2008

2008-09-21T21:07:00.010-05:00

From Inside will be screening at the 22nd Leeds International Film Festival, November 4-16, 2008.

From Leeds:
"Leeds International Film Festival is your portal to the unseen world of cinema. Leeds is an immense and intense experience that reveals the incredible wonder of global filmmaking that you can’t see on your local screen or at home. Over thirteen days Leeds presents more than 200 screenings and events in a dozen venues to thousands of filmgoers eager to discover what is really happening in contemporary cinema."

Leeds Official Site

FROM INSIDE at UTOPIALES 2008

2008-09-21T20:57:00.008-05:00

From Inside will be screening at Utopiales 2008 in Nantes, France, October 29 - November 2, 2008.

From Utopiales:
"Originally founded in 1998, the Nantes International Science-Fiction Festival is a multimedia festival featuring whole sections devoted to literature, comics, science, video games and, of course, film.

With over 200 international guests in 2002, the festival is now the most important SF cultural event in Europe and one of the biggest SF writers’ conventions in the world.

The film section at Utopiales organizes yearly international feature and short film competitions as well as retrospectives and special programs. The event is France’s best place to discover the most recent and exciting productions in the science-fiction field."

Utopiales Official Site

FROM INSIDE IN WINNIPEG

2008-09-16T11:04:00.004-05:00

From Inside will be screening October 31 in Winnipeg.

"In honour of World Animation Day, The Cinematheque and the National Film Board of Canada present PLASTIC PAPER: Winnipeg's Animation Festival, featuring the GET ANIMATED! program of new NFB work. Come and discover animation in all its forms with regional premieres of new independent animated features, a showcase of classic NFB vignettes, local animators, international shorts, and even something for the kids."

FROM INSIDE: Friday. Oct. 31 – 9:00PM

Complete Schedule

IN SPAIN IT RAINS BLOOD

2008-09-11T19:31:00.004-05:00

Hey everyone, I'll be attending SITGES this year with my little movie. I will be there OCT 7-12. When I have my schedule I'll post & update it here.

I'll be blogging the event so be sure to check here from time to time.

I'll also be twittering, so subscribe to my twitter account if you are interested in more inane blow-by-blow updates: JBXX

FROM INSIDE at SITGES 08

2008-09-01T22:58:00.010-05:00

From Inside will be screening at SITGES International Film Festival of Catalonia, the number one fantasy film festival in the world! From Inside will be a part of the Anima'T program.

SITGES Official Site

From the SITGES site: "Anima’t offers the most recent animated film productions, feature and short films. Some films screened in this section in recent years: Nocturna (by Víctor Maldonado i Adrià García), Tales from Earthsea (by Goro Miyazaki), The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (by Mamoru Hosoda), Paprika (by Satoshi Kon), Steamboy (by Katsuhiro Otomo), Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (by Tetsuya Nomura & Takeshi Nozue)

FROM INSIDE at DEAD CHANNELS

2008-09-01T22:44:00.006-05:00

From Inside will be screening at DEAD CHANNELS: THE SAN FRANCISCO FESTIVAL OF FANTASTIC FILM, October 2 - 9, 2008. Dead Channels is Northern California’s premier celebration of independent and international fantastic filmmaking, bringing audiences in the Bay Area entertaining and intelligent science-fiction, fantasy, horror, action, exploitation and a few weird unclassifiable cinematic gems.

Complete Schedule

FROM INSIDE at ST LOUIS INT'L FILM FEST

2008-09-01T22:41:00.009-05:00

FROM INSIDE will be screening at this year's St. Louis International Film Festival. The 17th Annual SLIFF will be held Nov. 13-23, 2008. The festival annually features the St. Louis premieres of more than 200 films.

St. Louis International Film Festival Official Site

FANTASIA FIRST FEATURE BRONZE

2008-07-24T00:49:00.009-05:00

Fantasia has announced the winners of First Feature competition. From Inside takes the Bronze.

Link

FROM INSIDE REVIEWS

2008-07-16T16:56:00.005-05:00

A couple reviews for the From Inside world premiere at Fantasia:

Click here to read a review at Twitch

Click here to read a review at the Montreal Gazette
(...and let me make a correction for this review: the From Inside score is by Jeff Rona and David Edwards).

FROM INSIDE at FANTASIA

2008-06-26T22:11:00.007-05:00

From Inside will have its World Premiere at Fantasia - an awesome festival in Montreal. From Inside is part of the Animated Auteur Visions program. The other films selected for the series are Genius Party by Studio 4°C, Bill Plympton's Idiots and Angels, and the awesome anthology Fear(s) of the Dark. Wow, fantastic company!

Fantasia 2008 Official Site

Variety says this about Fantasia.

FROM INSIDE at PiFAN

2008-06-26T00:10:00.006-05:00

From Inside is an official selection of the 12th Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival in Korea.

PIFAN Official Site

IT IS DONE

2008-06-19T01:17:00.002-05:00

LO

2008-06-15T23:34:00.005-05:00

Nothing to show lately as final audio mix is under way. I've already posted a screenshot of what a pro-tools edit window looks like, so here's something more pleasant to look at.

This is the cover for our Lolo album, "Bad Idea," which Lakeshore Records will be releasing in september. You can hear Lolo clips on Lo's MySpace or right here and here.

Also, listen for a Lolo track in the upcoming film, Midnight Meat Train (Aug 16).

Lolo is: Lori DeManche, Dedric Moore, Delaney Moore, and myself. Check out our album in september...

A From Inside connection to this post: Lo did the temp vocals for From Inside. She must have recorded them a dozen times over the course of a few years as I polished the dialog. Doing voice-over for The Most Depressing Film Ever is grueling work. Here's proof; listen to these out-takes as Lori struggles through a scene where Cee emotionally recalls a toy horse she had as a child... a toy horse named Doody. (Lori will probably kill me for posting this, so until I get a take-down notice....).

FROM INSIDE ART PRINT 2

2008-05-09T01:34:00.003-05:00

Here is the second in a series of prints featuring artwork from the film.

Visit Twitch before May 20 and enter to win a free print!

FROM INSIDE PRINT 2: "SKIN"
Available as a 12" x 17" fine art giclee print at the official From Inside web site (just click into the store).

FROM INSIDE KEY ART

2008-04-21T19:17:00.013-05:00

From Inside key art. Available as an 18"x24" giclee print via the store at the official From Inside web site.

Over the next few months I'll be releasing a series of prints featuring artwork from the film. Most of the prints will be 18x24, limited edition, signed & numbered.

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Here are a few sketches of other concepts for the key art.

Here's the sketch that led to the final design:

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Some of these sketches have tag lines. This was before I decided that a tag line wasn't necessary. I love a good tag line, though. They're like pure marketing that, when done right, perfectly tap into the zeitgeist of the day.

Someone's eyeballs pass over your movie poster, you have three seconds to deliver the style and content of your story. Three seconds to say everything. What do you say?

Rules for a good tag line:

1). The great ones are four words or fewer.

From the Best Movie Posters of 2007:

Their War. Our World.
Don't Get Chumpatized.
Innocence Is Priceless
It's Not Your Imagination.
The Hit Goes Down.
Never Forget. Never Forgive.

2). If the tag line is pivotal dialog, a common saying or lyrics from a song, it can be more than four words.

Houston, We Have A Problem.
All You Need Is Love.
I'm a British Nanny and I'm Dangerous. (it was a character sheet, not key art -- but it's better than the key art tag)

3). The tag line has to be a clever play on words relating to the
story while simultaneously turning the poster design into a visual pun.

Fully Loaded.
You Might Feel A Little Prick.
Nick Naylor doesn't hide the truth, he filters it.
Poison In His Veins. Vengeance In His Heart.

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My vote for best tag line of 2007 says it all with two words.
Protect. Destroy.

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The art of the tag line has changed a lot over the years. Maybe the earth was spinning slower in the 80s and time moved slower, so people could stand still for 30 seconds and read a movie poster without getting bored to death:

blahblahblah...zzzzzz.

Same tag line today would probably read: "No Pain. No Fear."

--

Here's a few rejected From Inside tag lines from studio clown/caffeine hook-up/sound designer, Dustin Blegstad:

The Feelbad Hit of the Year.

OMG! Herz teh pregz! LOL!

Sometimes, you have to light a baby on fire.

On a Train, No Woman Can Hear a Baby Scream.

Outdated Transportation Comes Alive.

Im n yer train, mezzin up yer dreemz.

Full on Frontal (of a train)

Sometimes a train is a dick of death.

THIS! IS! A TRAIN! (kick)

--

spoken word version of this post:
"This is the From Inside movie poster. It does not have a tag line."

POSTER & TWITCH CONTEST

2008-04-14T22:27:00.005-05:00

From Inside key art is available for viewing exclusively at one of my favorite sites; Twitch.

Can't think of how many awesome & strange little films I would have missed had it not been for Twitch.

Visit Twitch and enter to win a signed giclee print of the poster.

FROM INSIDE SCORE

2008-03-24T13:28:00.006-05:00

I am very excited to announce that we have a composer for From Inside.

Jeff Rona.

Jeff has worked on numerous films & records, including projects with directors such as Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, Wong Kar-wai, Robert Altman, Steven Soderbergh, Mark Pellington, Stephen Hopkins, Jonathan Demme, Frank Darabont and many others. His projects have received numerous awards including Oscar, Peabody & Emmy awards, and countless film festival awards around the world.

Jeff has an amazing talent for drawing straight lines to the emotional core of a scene -- a surgically precise cut to the heart... felt but not seen. The music in From Inside is the soul of the the film. With limited character animation and sparse dialog, the music, in a sense, is acting. In most films music underscores, directs, or accents. Jeff's music in From Inside, however, absolutely lives in the emotional center of the story.

I'm a huge fan of soundtrack music, and have to say again I'm very very excited to have an opportunity to work with Jeff. Can't wait to share his work with you.

A few photos from our spotting session last week:

Jeff (awesome studio):

Jeff's assistant, David Edwards (laughing), and myself (mumbling something funny):

Producer, Brian McNelis:

Studio:

SNOW

2008-01-27T14:44:00.001-06:00

I'm in Park City for Sundance this week. It is snowing. A lot.

MEAT PUPPETS

2008-01-27T14:38:00.001-06:00

A few posts back I mentioned that one of the remaining shots was a practical effects shot. Here is a photo of some props for that shot.

bloody bandages.

I've titled this post "meat puppets" because when my wife saw what I was working on she asked, "What are those bacon puppets for?"

Here are the bacon puppets in action:

SOUNDS LIKE HELL

2008-01-16T21:02:00.003-06:00

I frequently joke about this being a picture of the From Inside crew:

From left to right, including (and staying on) my thumb: production designer, art director, storyboard artist, technical director, simulation coordinator, lead layout artist, texture painter, lighting artist, render wrangler, supervising animator, character designer, editor... you get the idea.

That's a slight exaggeration.

From the start, I wanted to focus on the visuals as much as possible, so I brought my good friend Dustin Blegstad on-board as sound designer and production assistant.

I've worked with Dusty on a variety of projects over the years and have always admired his direct, no-nonsense approach. Blunt in a good way. From Inside has that same sense of directness, so I knew he'd do great work. I am always amazed by how much Dusty's sounds bring the shots to life -- even the simplest addition of a single sound adds so much life to the work.

Here is your guest blogger, Dustin Blegstad:

--

"So what does that sound like anyway?"

My basic approach to sound design for From Inside was to keep it as simple and as realistic as possible. I don't use a lot of effects. Just basic EQ, a few verbs, some pitch-shifting and simple layering of sounds. I'm not big on typical Hollywood sound design; guns don't sound like huge multi-layered explosions and tires don't burn rubber on dirt. When standing outside a menacing building, it doesn't produce an evil moan. Sharks don't growl and a punch doesn't sound like a 2x4 on a side of beef. Most modern movies exaggerate every little sound and are obnoxiously loud for seemingly no good reason. Louder isn't always better. Dynamics make it breathe. And as far as I'm concerned, thunder comes after lightning, just like in the real world.

Exaggerated sounds have their place, but not in this film. Natural sounds worked best.

I also tried to avoid purchasing sounds whenever possible, though for a few things it was necessary. I can't make a decent explosion without being arrested. And there aren't a lot of running steam engines available to take for a spin on a Saturday afternoon.

Since this is an animated film, when John gives me scenes they are completely silent. No dialog, nothing. It's really cool to start with a blank slate and begin filling it from scratch. It's wide open with possibilities.

I watch each scene a few times and make a list of all the elements I think I'm going to need. Then I add to the list what I think will make those sounds. The list reads like an insane person's to-do list.

Insane grocery list or haiku?

Another one:

After recording the sounds I dump them into Pro Tools and sync-to-scene, making adjustments for panning, effects and fades.

Finally, I deliver the audio files to John and he drops them into the master edit and we go back and forth making adjustments until it's finished. On to the next scene.

Sounds easy enough huh? Sometimes. Sometimes not. Let's just say that I have a swear jar and I started throwing credit cards in after a while. I switched to credit cards after John had me re-do and re-do and re-do the sound of a cigarette smoker exhaling... only to decide later that the scene worked best with Just Music. (!@#%ing Decider!)

This shot has no sound effects and that is a goddamn motherfucking crime:

The best part of the process, for me, is recording the raw sounds. Going to a location or working in the studio to record something specific - it's all fun. And I get to break stuff . A lot.

During one field recording session, I found myself hanging from an overpass thirty feet above the ground with a microphone in my hand while a train sped by overhead. I had a sudden moment where I thought; “What the fuck am I doing? Oh yeah, I'm making a movie.” Maybe John will give me credit for stunt man as well. I wish I had brought a camera that night.

This is a good place to get yourself killed. To be exact; 39° 0'55.46"N, 94°30'56.99"W:

The bridge above was a great source for sound effects. Besides recording trains crossing it, hitting it with a sledgehammer sounded awesome. The bridge also appears in the film.

Here is a shot of the 3D model John built of the bridge:

Also, just for reference, if you hang out in a rail yard at midnight and sneak around with a hand-held electronic device, someone will undoubtedly question your presence. This may or may not result in arrest. It depends on what type of shoes you're wearing. I suggest some type of high quality running shoe.

In another instance, we needed to make the sound of train wheels moving on tracks submerged under water. We decided that the best thing to do would be to flood a garage and drag the blade of a dolly through the water, scraping the concrete floor. Worked great, but I'm not sure how much it helped property value.

Sounds like Hell:

Need sound for a baby being delivered? Get a big chunk of scrap meat from a butcher (I prefer beef tenderloin, pork is better for zombies) and put it in a sink. Place a microphone in front of it and move it around a bit. Gross? Yes, but it sounds cool.

Puuuuuush:

The sound of From Inside is almost finished. I still have to add sound to a couple of pick up shots, but nothing major. I'm going to make another pass on the whole film just to make sure there aren't any glaringly obvious mistakes. If there are, it's John's fault.

Working with John is always a great experience and I'm hoping when this is done we can work together on another film soon.

Here are a couple of screen grabs.

Leviathan. Probably the most fun to do:

Buffalo slaughter, second favorite.

STILL for the HOLIDAYS

2007-12-24T14:23:00.001-06:00

RANDOM STILLS

2007-12-22T01:42:00.001-06:00

FROM INSIDE, the illustrated movie

2007-12-22T00:50:00.000-06:00

Can a graphic novel be translated directly to film?

YES.

But.....

From Inside isn't a typical comic book. The things that made it a unique graphic novel are the same things that worked in favor of translating it to film -- things I've mentioned in previous posts: No dialog (no word balloons), no sound effects, a very simple rectangular panel design for every page (instead of crazy-angled panels with characters busting out of the frames).

...and most importantly: no fight scenes.

What do you see?

Most people would answer: "A woman."

That's incorrect. It's a painting of a woman. When we look at artwork, we accept it as a substitute for reality -- whether it's a simple drawing of a stick figure, a painting, or a photograph.

If I were to animate this image, I would cut the figure into pieces: arms, hands, fingers, eyes, eye lids, hair, etc. Each element could then be animated -- bringing the figure to life... but not really.

When I cut the From Inside paintings into layers for animating (like cut-paper animation), I found that there was a point where a certain amount of animation caused the images to switch from being a surrogate for reality (paintings) to being what they actually were: pieces of cut paper moving around.

An example: compare the treatment of still photos in Chris Marker's great La Jetee to how photographs are manipulated in The Kid Stays in the Picture. In La Jetee, we look past the actual photographs and feel as though there is a wider world beyond the edges of the screen. In The Kid Stays in the Picture, we know we are looking at small paper photographs that have been multiplaned -- we don't see a world, we see graphic design.

With From Inside I wanted to maintain the emotional impact that comes with having still images be read as a substitute for reality -- of being evidence, a record, of actual events rather than pieces of paper moving before your eyes. I would animate right to the point where representations became real, physical objects and then take one step back to "painting."

...And I found that character animation got me to this switching point on a much steeper curve than animating inanimate objects -- probably due to some weird variation of the uncanny valley.

Anyway... this is why having no fight scenes worked in my favor. I didn't have to deal with the problem of translating comic book illustrations of figures moving with high energy. If I'd had to, I would have had to either break the "paintings that move" rule I set up for myself and fully animate the action or use stills and hope that you the viewer wouldn't feel cheated by looking at a mere painting of a kick-ass fight scene.

Actually... there was one scene in the graphic novel with a lot of figure movement. I kept the "it's a painting" feeling by using fast camera movement, quick cuts and good sound design. It worked for this scene, but employing those same tricks over and over would have grown tiresome.

(It's not Batman vs. Superman, but there will be blood)

I like on-line comics that are static pages, but animated comics with a bit of motion usually don't work for me -- especially if it's an action comic. Action doesn't have much of a punch when your hero is an inanimate paper cut-out sliding from screen left to screen right. (Excepting the Mr. Incredible & Pals short on the collector's edition of The Incredibles which brilliantly pokes fun at these shortcomings and makes me realize that many on-line animated comics today are a lot like old superhero cartoons).

Also, I don't mean to say cut-paper animation can't build an emotional connection between audience and story. I love cut-paper animation and can think of plenty of examples where I am pulled into a story and don't dwell on how it was or wasn't animated:
- The end titles for A Series of Unfortunate Events.
- This: Dragon
- Stuff that was designed to look like cut-paper -- Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends for example.

--

There are some animated comics that I like because they do not try to replicate the visual language of printed comics. They're more like motion graphics. The animated comics at the Fox Atomic site are a good example (find them within www.foxatomic.com in the comics section -- 28 Days Later, Turistas).

--

...and this... well... this one walks an amazing line between illustration and animation... and live-action.

Dante's Inferno

--

Since I don't ramble this much in real life, long posts will now have spoken word versions at the end so you can scroll down and get to the point.

Spoke Word version of this post:
"From Inside is an animated film, but watching it feels exactly like reading a graphic novel."

SLEEP, NOW.

2007-12-20T22:36:00.003-06:00

The last 3D render is complete...

One more practical fx shot to comp and a few pages of notes to address.

The notes are little things that I need to fix now or they will bug me (forever). Like:
"Hand bigger on pregnant."
"Move the baby on pitchfork scene back 5 or 6."
"Darker dead bodies @ flooded house."
"Cee's eyes should be closed because she has fallen asleep."
"Take blowing hair off apocalypse pull-back, looks stupid."
"Lengthen rails under blood to telephone poles."
"Add piece of train to observation deck, lame."

Won't take long to make these fixes.

My G5 has been on 24 hrs a day for the past 2 1/2 years -- either working or rendering. It can finally catch up on sleep. Not me. What remains: the score and those notes. I can say this, though: the heavy lifting is over.

We will be submitting the film to festivals through the coming year. If it will be screening someplace, you'll hear about it here first.

3 MORE STILLS

2007-11-30T15:34:00.000-06:00

4 STILLS

2007-11-27T21:25:00.000-06:00

MORE STILLS

2007-11-23T11:30:00.000-06:00

Another randomly-chosen collection of stills...

HAND

2007-11-14T01:53:00.001-06:00

GOLDEN

2007-11-14T01:48:00.000-06:00

Sewed together with golden thread.

BOOK

2007-11-14T01:45:00.001-06:00

Tired of all train all the time? Me, too. So here is an exciting shot of a book falling down.

LEDGE

2007-11-14T01:36:00.000-06:00

No "On The Monitor" screenshots for awhile. The stuff I'm working on now is from the last few minutes of the film. You don't want to see any of that and spoil it. Right?

So, I'm posting random stills...

This shot has a great Whoooooosh sound as the camera passes between the two large boulders. Did you ever notice almost everything in Lord of the Rings goes "Swoooosh" as it passes by the camera? Birds, flowers, sandals, candles, even smoke.

INCUBATOR

2007-11-06T00:08:00.000-06:00

The texture inside the incubator was made by scanning a piece of raw meat. The faces of the gauges are from WWII German fighter planes.

ON THE MONITOR

2007-11-05T03:14:00.001-06:00

A cave-in...

PRACTICALLY SPEAKING (part 2)

2007-11-04T11:17:00.000-06:00

You need smoke or fog in your animated movie? Here are your choices:

1) Use a plug-in or a particle generator... which, on the low-end looks like a plug-in and on the high-end looks great but takes 80 years to render... and if you need the fog to blow around in a certain way it helps to have a degree in physics.

or

2) Buy a $30 smoke machine, some black paper, and a flashlight:

Adjust contrast and levels, scale, add blur, composite:

These shots are from a dream sequence. Dream sequences in From Inside are animated 12 fps (instead of 24). That's why it looks a little choppy. This is actually helpful for stretching (slowing down) the fog footage. No frame blending necessary.

AFTER: AFTER EFFECTS

2007-11-03T21:35:00.001-05:00

The image on the left is what a shot typically looks like as rendered by Maya. This is before color correcting and compositing.

Most of the 3D elements in this Maya render have been output as separate layers. The ground, the bridge, the train each exist on separate layers so they can be manipulated independently. Actually, the bridge is rendered in two layers because (you can't see it here) there is a part of the bridge that passes in front of the train earlier in the shot. That part of the bridge is on a separate layer, too. Some parts of the image are rendered in separate passes. The ground layer, for example, was broken into 3 passes: color, shadow 1 (shadows cast by the train), and shadow 2 (shadows cast by the bridge). So, not only is the ground a separate layer, the light and shadow that make up the ground are also on separate layers.

Besides lousy color, there are a lot of problems with the Maya render. (Click the image to enlarge it). Check out the edges of everything... The beams of the bridge are all very hard-edged. Same thing with the edge of the train. See that lower part of the passenger car? Looks like a crisp machine-made edge. That's bad. There is no shadow under the train. What shadows there are, are too hard and too dark. There isn't much depth of field; the tracks are hard-edge an in-focus all the way to the horizon. The horizon is a hard edge, too.

The Maya renders also don't have any particle effects -- no smoke, steam, fire...

These are all things that could be rendered by Maya (or whatever 3D pipeline you like), but those solutions are either beyond my computing power or would increase render times to something unmanageable.

So I usually fix it in After Effects. With duct tape.

ON THE MONITOR

2007-11-03T21:10:00.001-05:00

Looks like HO scale....

ON THE MONITOR

2007-10-30T21:59:00.000-05:00

On the monitor. Train. Bridge. After Effects. Render.

GRINDER TOOL & DIE

2007-10-30T21:22:00.000-05:00

Grinder Tool & Die - the studio where From Inside is being made. Yep, that's it: a single G5, Dual 2.7. You're laughing now, but a few years ago, when the film was started that machine was the top of the heap.

This is also the studio where most of the music I've made over the past 10 years was recorded. Yes, that's it: a single Ensoniq ASR10. You're laughing now, but a few years ago when -- never mind.

...although, this, I swear, was recorded in Ibiza, Dublin, and Brooklyn

...and this was sort-of recorded all over the place, too.

Okay, I exaggerated about recording so much in this little studio. But this graphic art stuff was absolutely all made at Grinder Tool & Die.

TORONTO AFTER DARK

2007-10-07T11:16:00.002-05:00

The From Inside short film will be screening at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival, October 19-25, 2007.

The From Inside short is a 9 minute film which serves as introduction to the From Inside feature length story. Working with the first 15 minutes or so of the feature length film, I cut together a piece that stands alone. It doesn't give much away in terms of the feature-length story, but it serves as a great introduction to From Inside: the visual language, the characters, the world...

More info can be found here:
Toronto After Dark

Stills from the short:

THE VOICE of CEE

2007-10-02T00:35:00.000-05:00

I am very excited and pleased to announce that we have found the voice of Cee.

Corryn Cummins.

Corryn brings to the role a perfect sense of sadness and persistence, of softness and strength. There is only one character in From Inside who speaks; Cee. The emotional weight of the entire film rests on one voice. Corryn carried this weight with heart-stirring quiet ease. She is Cee.

We recorded voice this past weekend in LA at Titmouse Studios.

Titmouse Inc.

Corryn in the booth

Ekaterina Slepicka, engineer (thanks Ekaterina and Titmouse!) and Brian McNelis, producer

The Director

After recording voice, editing at Red Velvet Studios, LA

ON THE MONITOR

2007-09-29T16:04:00.000-05:00

Checking renders. The top shadow pass is flickery and fuzzy. The bottom one is not. This is a frame from a shot that is 150 frames long. The shadow pass took 4 minutes to render each frame. Since the top render was so lousy and since I forgot to turn off shadow casting for the rail, it had to be re-rendered. That's a 10 hour mistake. I'm fired.

ON THE MONITOR

2007-09-16T15:59:00.000-05:00

Killer shadows. More killer shadows.

This is from one of the train pick up shots I mentioned... oh, about 8 years ago.

INDIE SPINNER RACK

2007-08-20T21:28:00.000-05:00

I am interviewed by Mister Phil and Charlito at Indie Spinner Rack. They do an awesome comics podcast and I had a great time talking with them.

Make sure to check out their archives -- some great interviews to be found there.

Thought I'd add a few show notes. So, check out the interview at ISR and come back to this post for some extra comic book geekness below:

________________________________

Indie Spinner Rack #93
Show Notes

Thanks to Charlito and Mister Phil. It was great talking with them.
I loved Mister Phil's story about the From Inside stand at the comic book store. Awesome.

---
Warren Publishing:
These were big magazine-sized comic antholgies published through the 70s and early 80s. Mostly black & white, occasional color pages. All the greats: Alex Toth, John Severin, Richard Corben, Frazetta, Neal Adams, Al Williamson...

I didn't read Eerie, Vampirella, or Creepy as much as the magazine 1994. I was lucky to have a drug store where the register didn't mind selling kids magazines that were clearly labeled as "Provocative Illustrated Adult Fantasy."

I loved the work of the Spanish and Filipino artists in 1994: Alex Nino, Jose Ortiz, Alfredo Alcala, Rudy Nebres. The work by these guys looked (and still looks) like nothing else being done in comics (so, seek out old copies of 1994, kids). Their black and white work was a heavy influence on me.

I've always thought that the artists whose work you copy (what? I didn't say "trace") when you are learning are the ones that influence you the most - even if whatever you end up doing in your own work doesn't look similar. For me, those artists were Alex Nino and the other 1994 contributors. Man, they loved their black ink.

Alex Nino:
info
wikipedia article re: Warren
Comics Journal article about Warren Publishing

Here's a page by Alex Nino. Amazing:

---
TUNDRA

Tundra was an independent publisher founded by Kevin Eastman (Melting Pot, Heavy Metal, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).

Tundra contracted From Inside, but the book was published by Kitchen Sink after acquiring Tundra.

Here's a Comics Journal interview with Kevin Eastman about Tundra and his work. It's a pdf from the Heavy Metal site. Kevin publishes Heavy Metal magazine now.
link

---
CALIBER COMICS

Caliber published my first series, Ashes. They published The Crow, Dead World, Baker Street, Kabuki... my last comic book series Golgothika.... the anthology Negative Burn...

Caliber published a ton of really great black and white comics before they folded. Most of the books are still in print. Check the site out.

Official Caliber site

Old friends from the Caliber days:

Nate Pride

Vince Locke

James O'Barr

Desperado

Guy Davis
Be sure to visit Guy's Illustration section... and the Comicwork section... and the Marquis pages... you know what, just click through his entire site. I've just decided Guy Davis is one of my top 5 favorite comic book artists.

Who are the other 4? Paul Pope. Frank Miller. Pander Brothers. Michael Manning.

Grinder web site My music, illustration, album covers, etc

Golgothika pages

The big chair!

---

Star Trek #6
It's the first comic I ever read. I must have been about 5 years old

I was thinking about this Star Trek comic and how there was another comic I saw when I was young that made me want to seek out more comics. That book was Adventures on the Planet of the Apes. A friend of mine owned the comic, but something about the book disturbed him so much that he wanted to get rid of it... by giving it to me.

The reason why the book bothered him was because there was a drawing of a decomposed person on one of the pages. I held the comic up to him and said "You mean THIS picture?" He was so upset when he saw the drawing of the skeleton that I thought he was acting... so I kept showing it to him... until I finally figured out that he wasn't pretending.

I was about 8 or 9 years old. That was probably the first time I realized that art could have a very real effect on people. Even little 2"x3" panels in a Planet of the Apes comic book. I looked at the kid I had turned into a puddle and thought: "Awesome." (Actually - if I remember right - my exact thought was "With Great Comic Book Art, Comes Great Responsibility.")

Sometimes I am amazed by what you can find on the internet. Issues #1-4 of Adventures on the Planet of the Apes in pdf format.

Check out issue 1, page 6:
Fucking scary!!!!!!!

---

Nails!

What's a fanzine? That was how bloggers blogged before the internets were invented:
wikipedia
Factsheet Five (the meeting place for all fanzines)

RENDER WANDER

2007-08-20T21:12:00.001-05:00

What is a "render wander?"

That's what happens when the progress bar on your computer says "Rendering" for 3, 4, 5 days in a row.

Let's say a shot is 10 seconds long. That's 240 frames. Depending on the scene's complexity, it could take my computer up to 15 minutes to render each frame. Shall we do some math?

240 frames X 15 minutes each = 3,600 minutes (ie: 60 hours... ie: 2.5 days).

Here is a quote from Michael Bay about rendering Transformers animation: “The visual effects were so complex it took a staggering 38 hours for ILM to render just one frame of movement,” reports Bay, “that’s unheard of in this industry.”

Let's say there were 25 minutes of special effects in the 2.5 hour Transformers film (that might be a low estimate). There are 1,440 frames in 1 minute of film. 25 minutes = 36,000 frames.

36,000 frames X 36 hours per frame = 1,296,000 hours. (ie: 4,000 days. ie: 148.4 years).

I gather, then, that Transformers is still rendering? (I'm kidding. I know there was a room someplace at ILM with 1,296,000 processors in it - each one working on a single frame while the animators were asleep). (I'm kidding again. Animators don't sleep!).

Anyway. The point I believe Michael Bay is making here is that the longer your rendering times are, the more kick ass your film is.

And the longer you have to wait for your renders to complete, the more often you go for a render wander. You get up. Wander. Eat. Read. Whatever.

--

By themselves, a lot of the windows, icons and menus in Maya (3D animation program) look interesting to me. With the addition of a couple textures and some brush strokes they make for nice abstracts.

That's what I do for render wanders. Stare at the monitor until it starts looking like abstract art. Or robots. In disguise.

Here is the Maya screen that became the artwork at the top of this post:

Here's another window:

And what it became:

SHADOWS

2007-07-22T00:15:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted for a while. So here is something I am working on. Shadows = render wander.

FIRST THREE MINUTES

2007-06-14T22:46:00.000-05:00

Watch the the first three minutes of From Inside.

Check out the MEDIA section at frominsidemovie.com

The clip is a visual introduction to the three main characters, the Train, the Wasteland, and the Girl.

3D WORLD

2007-06-10T19:22:00.000-05:00

I am interviewed in 3D World magazine. I talk about Style and Budget and how I get them to play nice with each other for a project like From Inside. In real life I don't talk so much.

It is Issue #89.

Here is a link:
3D World

FOUR LETTER WORD

2007-05-31T23:29:00.000-05:00

My second-most-favorite 4 letter word: DONE.

Not COMPLETELY DONE. Saving those two words for later. All of these "DONE"s represent the first 2 1/2 minutes of From Inside. That's about 1/2 of the pick-up shots I've mentioned in the last few posts.

I promise to follow up this photograph of a shot list with the actual shots. The whole scene. Soon.

POST-APOCALYPTIC POST

2007-05-28T23:58:00.000-05:00

Thought I'd mention a few post-apocalyptic films that made an impression on me in the 1980s when I young and impressionable (not like now - impressionable, I mean).

Through the 80s there were a number of great post-apocalyptic films. Looking back, I can see they influenced From Inside. I liked the sci-fi apocalypse films of the 80s - Road Warrior (one of the very few Perfect Films ever made), Terminator, Akira, Escape from NY, Nausicaa (one of my favorite animated films), etc - but it was the depressing stories I really gravitated towards...

Anyway , add these to your Netflix queue:

Luc Besson's Le Dernier Combat, (The Final Battle) 1983. Brilliant for its almost complete lack of dialog.. and raining fish... and rocks.

Testament, 1983. Post nuclear movie. This one affected me more than the made-for-tv The Day After - which was released the same year (actually, I think Testament was made for tv also, but it was too good for tv and got a theatrical release instead). Testament is a small story. I liked that about it. The scene where Jane Alexander is bathing her child after the explosion (was that Lukas Haas!?!) in their kitchen sink and lifts him out to reveal a sink full of blood -- powerful.

Threads, 1984. The best movie ending. Ever. You have to sit through 2 hours of dated filmmaking, though. Do it. No fast-forwarding. Struggle through it and the last few seconds of the film are the most powerful last few seconds you'll ever see. The last cut on Ruth's daughter; brilliant.

Kuroi Ame (Black Rain), 1989. Hiroshima and its aftermath. Tragic.

Grave of the Fireflies, 1988. Even more tragic.

When the Wind Blows, 1986.

Interesting that most of the post-apocalyptic films in the 80s featured a single, apocalyptic event - usually a nuclear explosion. Brazil would be a good exception to that, but in general, I guess there was a lot of nuclear anxiety in the 80s. Most post-apocalyptic stories today do not have a single defining event, but rather a long slow grinding away of order. Children of Men, The Road, Oryx and Crake...

ON THE MONITOR

2007-05-05T22:50:00.000-05:00

Making skies. This is from the 5th pick-up shot of the train (5 of 28!).

ON THE MONITOR

2007-04-22T02:47:00.000-05:00

Rough mixing audio. That's a lot of up & down for a rough mix isn't it... What can I say? I'm picky. Both temp and final elements are in this session. Audio is being done in Pro Tools, and yes that's an OS 9 window. Remember those? They had window shades. Which I miss, here, in the future.

TRAIN TEXTURES

2007-04-19T02:47:00.000-05:00

In texturing the 3D models of the train, I tried to accomplish this: I wanted the textures to look real, but not so real that they would move away from the painted look of the From Inside graphic novel.

My sources for real metal included dirty, stained, aluminum cooking utensils or kitchen appliances. Cookie sheets, toasters, cappuccino machines, bread makers, coffee pots. Most used cooking supplies - even ones that are still in commission - have amazing scratches, dents, stains and colors. Especially aluminum pans that have been washed with harsh detergents. I also dug through scrap yards for sheets of rusted metal... Car parts, truck parts, an old metal cash box (Empty. Unfortunately). I also dug up a few actual train parts.

In most cases these pieces of metal were placed directly on a large format scanner and scanned at a high resolution. Some of the odd-shaped pieces were photographed.

Here are some of the metal images:

Next: Painted textures. Oil, Acrylic, Ink... anything and everything. Some of these textures were made in a calculated way - with intentional shading, brush marks, and color changes.... some of them are palettes that I liked the messy, random look of... and some of them are scans of original paintings from the From Inside graphic novel.

Here are some painted textures:

The image below shows some of the textures which are the result of combining the paint and the metal. Again: I've tried to make them look like real metal, but at the same time have a painted, hand-made feel.

Here are some shots of the 3D texturing when it was in-progress. My favorite parts of the textures are the ink splatters you can see here and there.

PRACTICALLY SPEAKING

2007-04-16T04:10:00.001-05:00

Couple posts ago I mentioned using practical elements in the From Inside animation. Here is a simple example (that also happens to be one of my favorite shots).

In case you've never heard the term before, "practical" in the sense I am using it simply means "real stuff." Practical special effects are effects that are done on-set without computer generated tricks. Examples: fire, smoke, explosions, rain, gunfire.

One of my favorite uses for practical elements is to blend them with computer generated animation. (The waterfalls of Naboo are salt...)

This is how the shot started. Dripping white latex paint in front of a black background.

Next, I push the contrast & brightness of the white paint until it becomes very high contrast. This high contrast shot is used as a mask for whatever color I want to make the drips.

The drips are then attached to an animated oar. In this case, about 4 separate drips. Each one is motion-tracked to follow a point on the moving oar. Final shot:

That's it. Simple, but effective.

Back in a few days w/ another example.

1 has 1

2007-04-08T13:55:00.000-05:00

My favorite type of 3D scene. Polygon count: 1.

This is a new pick-up shot. It will most likely be the very first shot of From Inside.

MAKING TRACKS

2007-04-08T13:53:00.000-05:00

On April 6, I was not experiencing Grind House on its opening night. I was making tracks.

NEW LOOKS

2007-04-04T17:05:00.000-05:00

Speaking of the Magic Bullet Look Suite:
New Looks

BUILDING BRIDGES

2007-04-01T22:27:00.000-05:00

This is from a scene early in the movie. I wasn't happy with how this scene worked in the assembly edit, so it is being restructured... and rebuilt... with a new bridge. This screenshot was taken while adding damage to the bridge.

Here's another shot from the same scene. This is a train (not our train!) that fell from the bridge. No damage yet. There are 1 billion polygons in this shot. Okay, I exaggerated. Feels like a billion.

A few posts ago I mentioned train pick-up shots. Here is a still from one of those completed shots.

ON THE MONITOR

2007-03-18T23:53:00.000-05:00

Train pickups. About a dozen pickup shots of the train are under way. This is one of them under construction.

ON THE MONITOR

2007-03-10T00:08:00.000-06:00

Setting up a mask. Exciting. But not as exciting as rocks.

ON THE MONITOR

2007-03-09T03:09:00.000-06:00

Color correcting. 3am.

SHORT STEPS

2007-03-08T03:08:00.001-06:00

From Inside is a blend of 3D, 2D, and 2 1/2D animation. There are also composited practical elements - smoke, fire, liquid, dirt.

The 3D animation is done with Maya, the rest with After Effects. All compositing is done with After Effects.

Most of the motion graphics work I did through the 90's was for music videos, commercials, and special effects. In 2004 I thought I'd try animating a short narrative with After Effects. The idea was to keep the artwork simple and see what I could do with the 3D space in After Effects. My intent was to do something that looked like cut-paper animated with a multiplane camera. It turned out to be even simpler than that. The shots had a little depth, but not much - more like panning & scanning flat artwork than 3D.

The film was called Nesting Grounds. It played at a number of festivals the year I finished it, but I don't think it was ever posted on-line. So here it is. I still like the story, but the animation is looking pretty thin to me now (difficult to resist fixing it up before posting it here). It's not cutting edge, it's not elaborate, but making it showed me that it was possible to tell a story by cutting up paintings and animating them within After Effects. It was also a nice reminder for me that it's possible to tell an engaging story with simple images and simple tools.

After finishing Nesting Grounds, I made a 1 minute 3D short. The Vacant Chair. This short was an excuse to learn some basic 3D modeling and to test using practical elements as textures on 3D models.

I wouldn't say the animation of From Inside bears much of a resemblance to Nesting Grounds and The Vacant Chair, but these two shorts were the first steps towards From Inside. For this reason, I thought it would be interesting to post them here.

Next post, I'll put up some shots illustrating how 2D, 3D and practical elements are blended for From inside.

NOT ON THE MONITOR

2007-03-01T03:16:00.000-06:00

On the drawing table.

New artwork. Charcoal & pencil,... which will eventually be glazed and colored with oils. Same technique that was used for the original artwork from the graphic novel. Having reviewed the assembly edit, there are a few scenes that need to be shuffled or extended. This is for one of those scenes.

A few posts ago I said the From Inside film is a panel-for-panel adaptation of the graphic novel. Maybe that was an exaggeration. No... wait... it wasn't. The film is a plot-point for plot-point adaptation of the graphic novel.

In moving from printed page to film, though, some things have changed. A little. Some of the scenes from the book have been expanded in order to keep the film moving. For example, an entire scene from the book may have been a double page spread with text boxes spread over it. This works fine in a comic book, but in translating a scene such as this to film, I would add shots. Adding shots here and there has been necessary to make the film visually more exciting than staring at a single image with voice-over for two minutes. (Although... there is one scene like that...)

The biggest change I've noticed in moving the story from page to film is in the dialog. Film works best when it shows instead of tells. Comic books, however, can show and tell. For example, there is a scene in the From Inside graphic novel where the train has stopped for rain. In the comic book, the panels show the train stopped, passengers standing around in the rain, and the rain hitting the ground. The narrator's dialog reads something like: "The train has stopped for the danger of a wash-out. People are standing in the rain. They are getting wet. The rain is thick and brown, like mud falling from the sky. I listen to the rain tapping on the roof of the passenger car." The text in the comic helps give voice and character to the narrator, and it makes the reader pause on each panel. In comics, words help control the sense of time for a reader, and they describe things that a printed still image can't convey: sounds, textures, etc...

If that same dialog were used in the film, it would be terribly redundant. In the example above, the film - using time, motion, sound effects and music - conveys almost everything that was carried by text in the book.

So, in many instances, the dialog from the comic has been changed... or simply cut.