#Film Pre Production

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea concept art by Herman Blumenthal (1961)

[amberpoppitt]

The Road to E.T: Chapter One - 'Dreaming of a Night Sky'

Despite a difficult production – largely in part to Columbia Pictures’ financial troubles at the time of its development – Close Encounters of the Third Kind went on to be a roaring success for the then 30-year-old Steven Spielberg. The film cost $19.4 million dollars to make, yet upon its release in 1977, it brought home a worldwide box office grossing £306.9 million. Columbia Pictures…

[carsthatnevermadeitetc]

Ford Mustang Convertible, 1964½. Also used in Goldfinger, driven by Tilly Masterson (played by Tania Mallet), a pre-production white over red Mustang soft-top. A gold Mustang Fastback was being prepared for the third James Bond movie but it wasn't ready in time for filming so the white convertible was used instead. The Mustang's tyres and lower portion of the right side were slashed by Bond's Aston Martin DB5.

[qlfilmingupdates]

Currently Filming/In Progress (January 19)

Love Upon a Time, Draft Your Love, The Wicked Game, & Y-Destiny Spinoff: workshops

My Magic Prophecy, The Ex-Morning: fittings (EM was delayed)

Lover Merman & The Hell Guard: preparing to film (LM will also start soon; not exactly sure where THG is production-wise, but I think they're aiming for a mid 2025 release)

I'm the Most Beautiful Count: filming (started in Nov)

Only You: filming (the first day was Dec 15)

Pit Babe 2: filming (the first day was Jan 16)

Knock Out: Q1

My Sweetheart Jom: Q2

Me and Who: Q2

Khemjira: Q7

Sweet Tooth Good Dentist: Q17

Us: Q23 (premiered January 18)

Boys in Love: Q27

The Bangkok Boys: Q28 (44 Qs total)

The Next Prince: Q31 (50-ish Qs and will be released by mid-2025 at the very latest; close to halfway through)

Perfect 10 Liners: Q49 (premiered October 27)

From what I've heard, My Bias is Showing?! might be filming, but I'm not 100% sure (I can't seem to find any pics to confirm).

[weirdlookindog]

Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974)

pre-production poster

[sirenemale]

Okay I'm desperately trying to find examples of horror film artbooks, or ANY concept art for older low budget horror films. I'm not finding much at all, which does track bc of the nature of these productions but they still would have had production art, that art has to be somewhere. SO if anyone has book recs or blog posts or anything pleaseeee drop them. Rn the best I have is the mars attacks artbook, the return of the living dead art book and some really shoddy production art for house of 1000 corpses I got off a prop site. Long shot too but any kind of concept work for John Water's films would go crazy as well, so far I've only got tangential stuff like the scrapped designs for the Pork stageplay with Divine and the paper doll book that Van smith illustrated (costume designer and stylist for his films and for Divine).

[scrumptiousstuffs]

That was quick….

Source as above

29/11/2024

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

THE KOOKY, KITSCHY, OFF-BEAT EVOLUTION OF LAIKA'S PREMIERE SILVER SCREEN GRRRL.

PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on assorted concept art and/or character designs for Coraline Jones, the titular character from the 2009 stop motion animation film titled "Coraline," produced by Laika and Pandemonium, and directed by Henry Selick. Artwork by Shane Prigmore.

THE STORY: "While exploring her new home, a girl named Coraline discovers a secret door, behind which lies an alternate world that closely mirrors her own but, in many ways, is better. She rejoices in her discovery, until Other Mother and the rest of her parallel family try to keep her there forever. Coraline must use all her resources and bravery to make it back to her own family and life."

-- CHARACTER DESIGN REFERENCES/ART OF ANIMATION

Source: https://characterdesignreferences.com/art-of-animation-3/coraline.

[cancan-jpg]

"If home is where your friends are, how far would you go to find it?"

A short film about friendship, exploration, and the infinite cosmos.

Pre-production art for my team's short film, our proposed final animation diploma project; set for 2026 release.

[wifeofwolfman]

so, here's the new creature! right now i'm calling it a Shape of Shapeshifting. it's a big weirdo, conceptualized as a shape given to the force that shifts shapeshifters' shapes. it's a felt puppet, made with aluminum wire, wool, felt, and holographic paper, with hot glue used to attach the paper. also the eyes are glued to pins so i can adjust and switch em around as much as i want.

i love how it looks, the contrast between the shiny sharp details and dark fuzzy silhouette. i'm learning how to photograph it, so these pics are rough and repetitive and more so me sharing the learning experience than showing off the creature properly. it's still a work in progress and additions are needed, like holographic stars added to the shoulders & thighs. personally, i'm fond of the lower light pics, with their vague idea of a body and the clean ideas of teeth & claws.

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Taarna animation drawings and cels - Heavy Metal (1981)

[omenalafilm]

Polaroids from Pre-Production Meeting Monday 👀

We’ve got our director, Stephanie, working on story structure ✍️ Our cinematographer, Harry, applying for his visa ✈️ and our producer, Sydney, reluctantly posing for a photo 📸 This short film isn’t planning itself 😤

[fallloverfic]

"Nimona" the movie art style inspiration

This tweet basically summarizes a big thing I've been thinking about when looking at reactions to the Nimona teaser and footage releases.

But actually we have to go back to 2012 first, when Paperman the short film released under Disney (it was attached to Wreck-It Ralph).

For background, Nimona is a webcomic turned graphic novel by Nate Diana Stevenson. The adaptations rights were purchased by Fox in 2015, who assigned it to Blue Sky Studios to make. Disney purchased 20th Century [Fox] Animation in 2019, and shuttered Blue Sky before the film was complete, cancelling the project in February 2021. The film was picked up by Annapurna (production), DNEG (animation, with use of Blue Sky materials), and Netflix (distribution/marketing). It will premiere at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France on June 14th, 2023, show in limited theaters on June 23, 2023, and be on Netflix for general streaming on June 30th, 2023 at 3 AM EDT. Anyway, Paperman.

Cannot stress enough that this short was really groundbreaking. While Nimona the movie adaptation didn't start life at Disney, 2012 was long before Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse came out in 2018 (or when it started production by 2015 or so). In point of fact, we knew back when Nimona was cancelled in 2021 (or earlier) that it was planned even then to use an evolved version of Paperman's art style. Notably, the short's animation supervisor was Patrick Osbourne. (Paperman's director, John Kahrs, also worked at Blue Sky prior to this, and the composer, Christophe Beck, is also composing the score for Nimona, but let's focus on Osbourne).

(Also kind of... random theory, a lot of people are criticizing the office building sequence in the Nimona teaser footage cause they think it looks "unfinished", I think because they're confusing intentionally minimalist "modern" design with being "unfinished". But a part of me kind of wonders if the design itself is some sort of homage to Paperman, which largely took place in an office building, though also it's just an office building, it's not surprising the design is minimalist).

Anyway, Feast the short film was released in 2014, and it was directed by Osbourne.

Osbourne was later one of the original directors for the Nimona film before it was cancelled by Disney in 2021 (the article is from June 2015, and leads with the fact Osbourne directed Feast, and notes that he also worked on Paperman). Watch both the Paperman and Feast shorts, you'll see the same style there. Again, 2014 is a lot earlier than 2018.

And then of course Blue Sky (original animation studio for Nimona prior to the Disney cancellation) released The Peanuts Movie in 2015. DNEG has used a lot of Blue Sky Studios materials in their production to complete Nimona. A number of Blue Sky folks were brought back on to work on the project, as well. And based on leaked stuff from around the Disney cancellation, we know the stuff carried over (in the articles it's framed kind of like it leaked when the film was officially revived in April 2022, but the footage on the article came out around/before Nimona's cancellation in 2021).

Folks also need to remember that just because film A released after film B doesn't mean that film A was inspired by B, particularly with the long production schedules of animation (and in the case of something with as rocky a production history as Nimona).

From what I can tell, both Nimona and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse began production around the same time (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was in talks around 2014/2015, and seemingly was in at least pre-production by early 2015; Fox bought the adaptation rights for Nimona sometime in/around early June 2015). While Nimona was still in production when Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse came out in 2018, it had been in production for around three years at that point. Certainly it was developing for a long time, even before it was cancelled in 2021 (6 years versus Spiderverse's 3), and projects stuck in development hell do make 180s sometimes. I just kind of doubt they just saw Spiderverse, or even the marketing materials for it, and completely redesigned things based solely on that, given what we know of the development plans and who they picked for the project. Comparatively, The Peanuts Movie also had a very long production time, seemingly, with the idea originating in 2006.

Whatever the case may be, and no shade on the amazing beauty of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (gorgeous, amazing film, please watch it if you haven't), I highly doubt we have Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse to thank for Nimona the movie's existence/appearance, or later films or shows using similar styles. At best, I think there's a non-zero possibility that the 2018 success of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse helped encourage Annapurna, DNEG, and Netflix to give Nimona a chance in 2021-2 to revive it after Disney shuttered Blue Sky Studios in 2021, but I doubt that's why the film looks the way it does, and the fact that what already existed for Nimona the film would have been a key convincing point there (e.g., here's our project that kind of looks like that/is planned to look that really popular thing).

[courseyoulovemeyoudontknowme]

It's Complicated (2009, Nancy Meyers

06/01/2024

It's Complicated is a 2009 film written and directed by Nancy Meyers. The main performers include Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin.

Divorcee Jane Adler lives with her three children in Santa Barbara, California, where she runs a successful pastry shop.

In May 2008, Nancy Meyers agreed with Universal Pictures to make a comedy film, which she would write, direct and co-produce with Scott Rudin. During the development and pre-production phase the project was carried out under the title The Untitled Nancy Meyers Project. Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin were contacted in August 2008, while Steve Martin joined the cast in October, the remaining performers joined the cast in the following months.

Filming began in New York in April 2009 and concluded in August of the same year.

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

FROM DEEP BENEATH THE HYBORIAN AGE --ENTOMBED IN THE CRYPTS OF ETERNITY.

PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on a pre-production piece titled "The Thing in the Crypt," c. 1979, artwork by Ron Cobb for the American sword and sorcery/action movie "Conan the Barbarian" (1982), directed by John Milius.

EXTRA INFO: Other sources have this piece listed as "Tomb of the Atlantean General," with a different, darker color scheme.

Resolution at 955×1447 & 698×960.

Sources: https://x.com/unconquered_sol/status/1741514969512857851 & Reddit.

[pipii]

LONG POST! 💫The main character of Little Things always had a sheep esque design, even before having any meaning/adding in the sheep plushie at the end. As production went on, the sheep design came to symbolize a lamb walking towards its own slaughter. The character had to be simplified a few times. Colors were pretty difficult to choose, turquoises and blues were symbolic of life in the film, so I originally wanted to keep their hair blue, but pink was supposed to be symbolic of this "spirit realm". I went with the pinkish brown hair for the cohesiveness and also because SPOILER, the character isn't dead or alive and is somewhere in between. Plus the blue was more of an indigo anyways.

💫OKAY AND THE MONSTERS

I meant for watchers to either wonder what the monster's motives were or just think they were cute with randomly designed accessories - why are they determined to help MC? Do they want to eat them? Are they just cute little guys? Etc.

Animating 10+ characters was never going to be easy. I designed the monsters to all have the same base body shape with small changes like height. That way, it wouldn't feel like you were animating all 9 different monsters and instead it would feel like just 1. Personality traits were added which would tie into the family portrait during the void sequence, while also allowing clean-up/detailing to give the individuality. Plenty went into the designs themselves, but that will take forever to go over.

💫I'm very much an animator at heart, but I think this experience has given me more confidence and has made me realize that I actually do enjoy concept work. I love designing, but struggle with stagnancy which is why I struggle with turnarounds.

If you enjoy these BTS recaps, I have a Little Things page on my portfolio that you can check out!