People have asked what other Mignola characters are in the movies. There are a couple more, some major, some minor. Kate Corrigan has a major role in the first of our movies. She's played by Peri Gilpin who I'm sure you recognize as "Roz" from FRASIER. Before the BPRD series, Kate was often overlooked by fans of the comics. But when Hellboy comes face to face with the implications of his right hand, who does it talk to? When he quits the BPRD, who does he tell? Kate Corrigan, and he tells her in a way that suggests a deeper relationship. In my opinion, if HB was going to settle down with anyone, it'd be Kate. But I doubt we'll be exploring Hellboy's romances; we'll consider the two of them just really dear friends.
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February 25, 2006
How'd THAT Happen?
Okay, let me make this quick.
When Mike and I talked through the two stories of the Hellboy Animated movies, we made them chock full of monsters, suspense, thrills, chills, spills and excitement.
Well.... evidently they weren't full enough.
Our movies are/were about 20 - 25 minutes short! Aieeee! A normal animated "half hour" is 22 minutes long; the rest of the time is made up of titles, commercials, bumpers and credits. How'd we miscalculate?
My fault. I went against my better judgment when the movies were in script. I break down the action of my scripts pretty thoroughly. If not scene by scene, pretty darn close. So for an episode of a show like Hellboy, a half hour would be about 33-35 pages long. Therefore, a 75 minute feature in that style should be around 120 pages, maybe 130. Except I was at a new studio and they had just had a couple of productions that were boarded much too long from scripts much shorter. So when Matt Wayne turned our outline into a script, he was very nervous when it came out under 90 pages. So was I, so we added an action sequence that featured not only Hellboy but Abe and Liz. It was sort of a glimpse of their last adventure which made for a much stronger introduction of Hellboy (which had been very low key before that).
Some production people warned us that we'd be overly long and that storyboard artists would be spending time working on sequences that would never make it in. I thought I'd risk being long because the new material added so much. Thank God I did because when the timing came back we were 20 plus minutes short! As I said before - aieeee. Meanwhile, we had kept the page count of the second movie short because we were worried about being long again. Aieeee again.
So we've been working on the new material and shifting schedules to create the new material. We're not done but the light at the end of the tunnel can be seen if you squint.
But the good news, and yes there was good news, the good news was that the studio didn't panic and the movies got better. One, they're jam packed. Two, in the first movie, Abe and Liz have an entire subplot that increases the scope of the film and puts more at stake. Three, one of the guys on staff asked if the new material had been cut out of the script originally because it felt like it should have always been there. That was the best thing. Everybody can use a brown noser like that. (Actually, he was being very sincere.) We had a neat story and just padding it out to fill time could have ruined it but the new stuff fit in and added different kinds of excitement. We're trying something much more ambitious in the second film that I'm really jazzed about. Can't talk about it for spoiler reasons but it's a story structure that I never would have thought of normally but will really add substance.
I should've known better but the end result should make everyone happy, especially those who would've been disappointed in mere Liz and Abe cameos. So that's why the blog's been behind. I should get it back on track soon. -- Tad
February 18, 2006
New Digs
Sorry that I've skipped a couple of weeks. Big things have conspired to keep me waaay busier than usual. They're not over yet so I'll post what I can, when I can. Hopefully a couple of times in the next few days.
The biggest deal is that we've moved! Film Roman Studios are now located in the IDT Entertainment Plaza across from the Bob Hope Airport on Hollywood Way. Geez, could we be any more Hollywood? IDT Entertainment seems to be headed for big things on TV, video, and movies and a lot of it will be animated, CG and 2D. One sign of their growth is that we just moved into a new building and we're out of room! Expansion is underway but there's a couple of looming projects that will mean leasing a new building.
But you're here to learn about Hellboy. Tough. This is just a quick one about our new place. I'll add some extra pictures in a photo album soon.
What's the other big thing that has me working through the long weekend? Well, if we do it right, fans won't notice it but it will make them very, very happy. And did I mention how embarrassing it is? Next time. --Tad
February 02, 2006
Packing
Not much I can add this week. It's fun to read the guesses about the backgrounds I've posted. Here's another by Wei Zhao. Several sequences use an extremely limited palette similar to what Mike and Dave Stewart use in the Hellboy comics. There's a before and after effect in the sequence above. When an evil entity makes its move, the sequence turns a desaturated purple, almost black and white. We're not trying to be literal; in fact, some of our coolest moments are when we don't worry about logic and go for impact.
We've added Kim Bitsui as a color stylist, as promised last week. All those creative color shifts result in almost doubling the workload. Meanwhile, I've seen more than half the first movie as a production animatic (no bells and whistles, no music, no sound fx). We have to be finished next Thursday because the computer network will be taken out of commission. Tomorrow I'll get the second third of the second movie as storyboard roughs. That film is definitely benefiting from our experience on the first one.
But in the midst of all this we're packing our offices for the move to our new building at the end of next week. Looks pretty slick and everyone is anxious make the move. In the meantime, an elevator motor blew out here yesterday, knocking out the power and nearly starting a fire. We evacuated and ended up leaving early. Plenty of time to hit the comic shop and pick up the new Hellboy comic. Have you? -- Tad
BTW, have you been reading the comments. Some of my replies are as long as my posts. They're not brilliant or anything, I just want credit for the wordcount!