Update: April Foolz yo!
It feels so good to finally let this one out of the bag, it's been two months of labor and love and we're finally in a position to talk about it. I hope you're all as excited as we at MyMedia have been for the past few weeks. To put it simply, yes we are making a movie based on the MyMedia Comics series. If you haven't seen them before, check em out in the blogs section (if your site has it) or just follow this conveniently placed link to check one out.
So today we're gonna be talking about the film, giving you a few previews and and general goss. The official site will be launching in the coming weeks, which you'll be able to find at http://www.mymedia.net.au/movie
So how did we get here?
In the not too distant past, not long after I joined MyMedia, I started showing a few people the comics I used to draw a few years back. They were crude (or at least a lot MORE crude than the current series), but simple punchy stories about life with a kind of depressing undertone which I always enjoyed. Particularly Roy and Gaetano quite enjoyed them and then the discussion came up 'Hey, why don't we do these for the site' which after an hour talk in some suburban cafe quickly turned into 'Well hey why don't we make a movie' . We looked at the options for funding it and distributing it and it became pretty apparent we'd have to work through the Australian Film Commission with some additional private funding. For about two weeks after that I worked through on my lunch breaks scripting and story boarding, ripping up the surface of my Wacom tablet. The story went through about 4 complete changes (one of them involved aliens that killed fat nerds by making them dance...) until I finally settled on something that was nice and sweet, and showed a lot of good character morals but still with all that self-deprevating humor geeks seem to love.
The AFC and Rejection
Both myself and Gaetano have had a lot of involvement with the Australian Film Commission in the past, so after a few bits of string pulling, we finally managed to get the film looked at for funding and distribution. We presented the script, story boards, and two of what I jokingly called 'animatics' (animated story boards, with lots of poorly recorded voice acting from the staff). They read the script, they laughed at the animatics but ultimately shot us down purely due to budget. Animation is expensive, too expensive for us.
So a bit let down we returned to the office, and winded up starting the web comic series that is currently being published, based on a lot of the designs from the movie story boards
And then we got green lighted...
Maybe about a month later, Gaetano was called by his contact at the AFC, saying that we should come back in and re-pitch the movie. We gathered up all our assets (most of which had been slowly rotting in the bottom draw of my desk) and trekked back over to them. We did the whole dog and pony show, not really expecting much out of it. After having to sit through my terrible acting for the second time, we all sat down, and to be honest I wasn't really expecting much. It turns out in the month between then and our first time showing, they had green lighted another Australian film, this one also animated, but in CGI. They put it to us that in order to maximize the CGI Studio's time vs cost, they would need to put in production another animated film. And the chose ours.
So where are we at?
Basically we're currently in production, after about 2 weeks of producing a full blown animatic for the CGI guys to work with, and to see how jokes play, what needs adjusting and so on. We're going to have the first teaser trailer for you very shortly, and despite the fact the entire movies animation assets are being produced in Maya, it looks insanelyclose to my drawing style. I'm so impressed with the studio, and they seem to be loving the project so far. I guess geeks enjoy movies about geeks.
Okay so that's the story of how it came to be, lets get into the meat of the movie.
The Plot
I'm not going to reveal too much of the story today, but this is the current draft of the teaser synopsis floating around the office.
Matt Kelly manages to single handedly sell out the entire company of MyMedia, causing its closure, forcing everyone he knows and cares about out of a job. With only his only friend Robtot and toe, Matt sets out to set things right, and avoid a savage beating from angry forum nerds.
Content
The big question that was floating around the office when I was writing this was, how adult is it going to be. Are you gonna have to be 15 to see it and all that jazz. No, we're aiming for a PG rating as of writing this, as the story of the film is actually quite sweet, despite somewhat surreal plot line. I've tried to keep a lot of morals going through out the film, and I think a lot of adult content ends up distracting from that. It's gonna be sweet and heart warming, but without being those kind of PG animated films that ram tacky morals down your throat every 30 seconds. I hate those.
Animatic Preview
Okay so I think that's enough talking for one day. Now is the part that's probably the only interesting thing in this whole news post, the preview. Today we're going to be showing you the animatics we used to pitch the film to the AFC. They're pretty crude, but I think you'll find some laughs in them.
Okay so thats enough for one day
We'll be posting a few more tidbits in the coming days, with the official site to be up at http://www.mymedia.net.au/movie within a couple of weeks. I hope you're all as excited about this as we are :D
Submitted by Robtot
01/04/2008
7
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