Ben Templesmith’s BLACK SKY, Matt Pizzolo’s MEDUSA: YEAR ONE debut at C2E2
Los Angeles, CA, April 21, 2010 – Ben Templesmith (30 Days of Night) and Matt Pizzolo (Godkiller) unveiled new projects during the “Halo-8: Illustrated Films & Comics” panel at the C2E2 comic con in Chicago. They were joined on the panel by producer FJ DeSanto (The Spirit movie, upcoming The Shadow movie). In addition to unveiling new projects and previously unseen art, the panelists discussed illustrated films and the digital future of sequential art with moderator Mark L. Miller aka Ambush Bug (comics writer for Aint It Cool News).
“It’s all about convergence,” said Templesmith during the panel. “It’s about words and pictures and movies and new ways of visual storytelling.” Clarifying the difference between ‘motion comics’ (which tend to repurpose existing comic books) and ‘illustrated films’ (which utilize new art created with the medium in mind), Templesmith said “the new frontier is doing original material and adapting to the medium properly rather than just backtracking and trying to make it work.”
“Halo-8 is a film company but we’re all comic book geeks, and a few years back we thought it would be cool to integrate comic book sequential art with film to make a new format that’s as sophisticated and large-scale as illustration while utilizing the dramatic storytelling of cinema… basically so we could make huge epic movies for weirdos,” said Pizzolo, who serves as President of Halo-8 as well as a creator. “It was important to us that the illustrations be created with this in mind from the get-go, because we want the art to retain its sophistication and integrity. We designed the format so the pace is driven by the audio: film actors delivering dramatic voice performances and elaborate music and sound design, that way you can really appreciate the sequential art the way you can in a comic book.”
“No one else, as far as I know, is doing this from the starting point of ‘it’s going to be both a film and a comic,’ that marriage is creating something really fresh” said DeSanto. “I think this is really ahead of the game in terms of world-building. It’s this really careful application of how to bring new worlds into existence.”
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During the panel, Templesmith unveiled his new project BLACK SKY and Pizzolo unveiled his new project MEDUSA: YEAR ONE. Both projects are designed to be illustrated films as well as comic books.
Templesmith described BLACK SKY as:
So far, all I can say is sort of Band Of Brothers…but with SQUID. ( Well, Cthulhu-ish ideas and my love of all things tentactular ) Yes, it’s a war comic. Want to get all emotional and down and dirty with it. Not exactly comedy in the vein of Wormwood… It’s post apocalyptic. It deals with a small group of soldiers, as the human race is reduced to relatively low tech solutions to claw back their planet, the new religion that drives them on to this goal in the face of hopelessness…and all the stuff that comes from such things. Many horrific and hopefully, some touching “tales from the front” in many ways. And of course, they’ll end up being players in a major event that may define the now generations long conflict. Lots of action but with an actual point to it I hope, rather than an excuse to simply draw “cool” things. Humans are such frail things. Squid, not so much.
Pizzolo described MEDUSA: YEAR ONE as:
It’s a re-envisioning of the Medusa origin. The starting point is Ovid’s version of Medusa where she’s a beautiful Greek maiden unjustly toyed with and cursed by the gods, not simply a monster from the start. So she’s the protagonist, and even though it will be a tonal shift from my recent stuff it’s still gonna knock you on your ass. It’ll mix the vengeful aggression of BRAVEHEART with the doomed romance of TITANIC… but y’know if TITANIC was badass and Kate Winslet was tearing people to shreds and throwing them overboard. This will deal with Medusa’s defiance of the gods and the love story of two regular people fighting back against a corrupt power structure. Most of the stuff I’ve been doing lately is really racy and edgy so this will change things up a bit, but since it’s all about defying gods it’s a pretty straight line from GODKILLER and LOADED BIBLE… even THE LONG KNIVES with its tagline “God hears your screams, he just doesn’t care.” Apparently I have god issues.
After the panel, Halo-8 debuted the complete GODKILLER illustrated film to a riveted audience. “This screening was a real test for the illustrated film format,” said Pizzolo. “None of us knew if it could hold an audience in a theatrical setting for a full 80 minutes or if this was only suited for episodic viewing on digital devices. The screening beat my expectations. Not only did the audience stay engaged for the whole thing, but everyone I spoke to said they loved watching it in a theater, they enjoyed it more than they expected to, and they’re looking forward to seeing what we do next. Plus, they bought DVDs and t-shirts, which is always a good sign.”
The panel also showcased a series of previously unseen sequential images from THE LONG KNIVES (created by Matt Pizzolo and illustrated by Ana Ludeshka) and art from LOADED BIBLE (created by Tim Seeley), two illustrated films currently in production.
Introducing THE LONG KNIVES, Pizzolo said “this was written as a bare-knuckled revenge movie, but I got real worried that the brutality of Act 1, which drives the revenge plot, would be mistaken for torture porn. The solution came by making a huge leap in style to a giallo aesthetic. Ana Ludeshka’s art is ethereal in a Tim Burton-esque way, so it made perfect sense to move from there into an Argento/Bava style. I think this creates a unique duality that really sets it apart. The last thing I want is for this to be perceived as torture porn, because in torture porn the brutality is an end in itself whereas here it’s a critical component of a deeper story. We’ll show you some of the really brutal Act 1 images and you can see how they look through Ana’s more surreal lens.”
While showcasing images from Tim Seeley’s LOADED BIBLE, Pizzolo pointed out “this is a bit of an experiment to see if we can make an illustrated film from an existing comic or if it’ll just be a motion comic. It’s a nuanced difference, but it’s important to us. Tim completed three issues that were released by Image Comics before we joined forces with him for the the illustrated film, but in order to run feature length the film requires at least three more issues… so we’ll be working with Tim to design those new issues for the illustrated film as well as the comic. So it’ll be a fun experiment to see how all this shakes down.”
About Halo-8 Entertainment
Halo-8 Entertainment (www.halo8.tv) is a Hollywood-2.0 movie studio using bleeding-edge strategies to create and distribute daring new films and lifestyle videos. Recent releases include the megapopular animated series Xombie: Dead On Arrival (which Bloody Disgusting called “one of the best online animated series to date”), the legendary NY hardcore documentary N.Y.H.C. (which Cinematical called “smashing… a terrific, well-told, engaging story”), the award-winning hardcore-punk thriller Threat (which Urb Magazine said “makes ‘Kids’ look like an after-school special”), and the campy, interactive horror-DVD-game Slumber Party Slaughterhouse: The Game (starring Tiffany Shepis, Joanna Angel, Melissa Bacelar, Masuimi Max). Upcoming releases include the erotic-art documentary The New Erotic (featuring XXX-auteurs Eon McKai, Kimberly Kane, Dave Naz, Jack The Zipper, Alejandra Guerrero), and the iconoclastic hero’s journey Godkiller (which Wired called “a horrific yarn of apocalypse, quantum physics, culture jamming, and conspiracy theory”).
