Wednesday, December 16, 2009

How are you doing?

I'm doing (art for a movie called) SUPER.

So.

It's like this: the fairly badass James Gunn wrote this fairly badass script, a hilariously dark take on a man who attempts to reinvent himself as a superhero. It's starring equally badass actors Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page, Liv Tyler, and other household favorites.

Rainn Wilson's character, Frank, is... well, I don't want to say sadsack, but he hasn't got a whole laundry list of things going for him. What he does do, is he likes to draw, and tape those drawings up to his wall.

That, ladies and gents, is where I step in.

"But Danielle!" you cry. "You can draw real good."

"I know," I say. "I do draw real good."

Thing is, Frank doesn't. A local studio in town is working on some vfx for the film and due to my close, personal ties with "someone" working there, when their initial passes didn't cut the mustard (ie, they were too good), I decided to give it a go. I basically drew as I did when I was 8. Which was really quite fine for an 8 year old, but pretty bad for a 30 year old professional artist.

James Gunn liked them.

I lost count of how many drawings I did that weekend-- I was told on Friday I was working on the project, and on Tuesday we had to deliver something like... I don't know, 100 drawings? James gave us a list of about 50 things to draw, and the rest we just started brainstorming. They became rather ridiculous. All the while, they all had to look like how I'd been drawing. With 3 different people that can be difficult so I'd end up redrawing some things. We put in one 14 hour workday, and at the very end, we were emailing drawings of one shot to James, and he was writing back saying, "They're too good, make it simpler..." I was so exhausted, I had lost the ability to be truly awful.

Wednesday morning of that week was the first day of shooting. The first scene being shot was a wedding scene, and they needed someone on set to draw. I went out there, in 30 degree weather, and surprisingly managed not to snot all over the drawings. They were filming inside of a local house, so the art department, where we were finishing up some work, was the bathroom, which we actually had to clear out of when one of the star needed to use it.

And I can't very well show you photos of my artwork, or how it looks in the movie. You'll have to just wait for the theater. Or! Or! How about, how about you buy it on bluray and we'll freeze frame it! And then look at it! Rainn Wilson told me not to get too attached, since it'll be in there for like 4 seconds, so I think that's what we just hafta do guys.

Check out James Gunn's website for any SUPER production details.

1 comment:

kim wells said...

Oh that's funny. I own that bathroom. :) I've been following the Twitter feed cuz my house is where ya'll shot the movie. I own it, rent it to some local college kids. :) Anyways. I just laughed seeing that. Isn't the pink and green hideous? We bought it about a year ago and it's just impossible to fix short of a huge change. But the hideous is kind of awful yet cool, too. :) Can't wait to see your drawings in the movie. :)