Primal does Sundance

Click image to view a mega-large version in order to take in all the little details. Click HERE to read all the notes on what's going on.

If you're headed to The Sundance Film Festival this year, you'll be able to catch a glimpse of what I've been working on recently. Before each film screening, there's what they call a "screenwash" playing up on screen as the audience files in. Something to look at while you're settling in your seat, silencing your cell phone, chatting with your fellow cinema-goer, etc. We did a screenwash last year, which had a tremendous response. This year we created two: the more serious "Fireplay" (to play off the theme of fire this year), featuring "a rolling wall of flame with a dancing ribbon of blaze," to quote our PR write-up -- I didn't work on that one; I worked on the more fun "Spark City" (see above), an alternate version of what goes on behind the scenes in Park City during the festival. Little workers go about their business scooting back and forth between various buildings, rooms, tubes, machinery, you name it -- holding onto flames that signify a creative spark, as well as flaming film reels (the product of that creative spark). All of it done in the name of creativity and independent filmmaking. It was a load of fun to work on! I had so much fun coming up with actions and "stories" of what these little guys would be doing throughout the entire town. Lots of work, but it was worth it.

I created everything you see here: the layout, buildings, sidewalks, characters. Rick Newcomb did the colors, effects, compositing, etc. He was in charge of the entire project, while I did character and element design and directing of the animation. Animation was done in Flash by Joe Kubesheski, Joanna Davidovich, and Jeremy Seymour. I did some animation, but it wasn't much. I was working on something else by the time the animation was getting ramped up. Once I have some more time, I'll post some sketches of this project. It went through a long, tedious process to get to a point where we were happy with it. Tons of sketches and ideas were scraped, as is usually the case with us. It's invigorating to be able to create an entire town, complete with inhabitants and lots of moving items, and have all of it work perfectly together. When you see this thing moving, it's pretty wild. It's where Bosch meets Biskup.

The piece runs as a 6 minute loop, so there's something new to look at each time you sit down to a new screening. We're hoping that all the audiences attending the Festival this year will get a big kick out of it. If you happen to be there for the Festival, let me know what you think of our Spark City. And be sure to let the Sundance people know as well. We'd love to work with them again for next year.

In addition, Primal created title packages (seen both online at Sundance.org and on iTunes) for Live@Sundance, Meet The Artist, and the Short Film Series. Art director Ben Prisk worked on those elements.

Have a great Sundance-y weekend.