Concepts and Storyboards - Intro scene and the "Sixufus Location"

When this project was started, it was me and...

Well.  Me and my mouse.  Computer mouse that is, and I wielded it with abandon; firing up various pieces of software, generating concepts and storyboards and spreadsheets and whatnot.

Now that Maurice Moore and his team are doing the hard production work, thought I might share these concepts with the interested world, lest they fall into digital oblivion.  That, and I thought they're kinda cool, in a geeky sort of way.

Before presenting the media, however, a few explanations are in order.

Intro Scene
During preproduction, it's the natural order of things that the director bring his/her vision to the story.  Translated, that means re-writes to the script.  Typically, this is a good thing for the project, for a myriad of reasons.

For Sixufus, Maurice thought we needed an additional scene at the start.  An introductory scene.  It adds interest and backstory, perhaps enough to even give our main character a little much-needed sympathy.  Because this was fresh on my mind, I generated a few images that I thought were appropro.

Sixufus Location 
In our story, the main character, Darwin, has multiple personalities.  All of Darwin's personalities know that the others exist, and there's a fair amount of argument, banter, and unpleasantness that goes on between them.

These interchanges, though interesting, would lose some (if not most) of their impact if we just used voice-over.  We need to see them; their expressions and their gestures (or lack thereof), in order to understand Darwin, to see what it would be like to have a group of people living inside of you, and them rarely agreeing on anything.

Thus was born the "Sixufus Location".  It's not a physical place (though it resembles one), but a meta-setting.  A place where there are just the six characters, around a table, and nothing else.

Technical Details

I'm the world's worst hand-draw artist.  However, I do know how to run software, generally speaking, and that's what I used to generate these images.

The intro scene stuff was generated in Poser 7, using the toon renderer.  Has a nice hand-drawn look.

The "Sixufus Location" concepts started life as Poser 7 scenes, which were then imported into Vue 7.  Added  a stock table, some chairs, and a pistol, then rendered 5-second animations, using radiosity.  I then brought those clips into Adobe's After Effects CS4 and applied the Toon Effect for the final hand-drawn look.  Heh, not perfect, but as Maurice says, it is what it is.

Finally  
These are concepts generated by me, the writer.  These are NOT concepts generated by Maurice Moore or his team, and the final film will look much different.  That said, I'll then add that this will give you an idea of what my mind's eye saw as I wrote the script.

Talent Signed: Nathan Huntley

For the lead actor, Sixufus will either be a real show-piece or a masochistic acting exercise:  He must convincingly play 6 different characters.  At some points, he will have to morph between characters, insinuating this shift to the audience without the benefit of dialog, much less voice over.

Guy's gotta have chops.

Lucky for us, Maurice Moore, the director who has optioned the Sixufus script, has already identified the leading man and got him committed (so to speak):  Nathan Huntley.

Maurice had the privilege of directing Nathan in "Inseparable Hearts", a short romantic comedy that's now making the film festival circuit.  That piece has Nathan playing an actor, roaming through various roles with the ease of a shark in bloody water.

With Maurice's permission, we've managed to create a small clip from his performance in "Inseparable Hearts":

Here's a bit more about Mr. Huntley:

Nathan holds a B.A. in theater with an emphasis on performance and a minor in playwrighting from the University of Tulsa. While attending the University of Tulsa, Nathan received the American College Theatre Festival’s commendation for excellence in the arts.  Not just once, but twice:  Once for his performance as Billy in the 1996 production of "The Game Room” (a role he originated), and again in 1998 for "Mr. Lucky’s Pub and Grill" (his original work). While in Tulsa, Nathan also co-founded and served as a co-artistic Director for OK REP! (the only theatre company in Oklahoma that consistently produces a full season of equity plays).

Nathan’s most rewarding work is as an actor.  In the summer of 1997, Nathan had the opportunity to premiere "Nation", a play by Tony Award nominee Joe Sears, in the principal role of “Tassel”.  This honor comes second only to being asked by Yvegeny Yvevdeschenko (Russian Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize Winner) to create and perform in opening piece for Yvevdeschenko’s poetry performance  in 1999.

Since moving to Los Angeles, Nathan has performed with THE PROP-TARTS comedy team. He also served as an actor throughout the process of developing a new play called A Place at Forrest Lawn (written by Jim Bontempo and Luke Yankee). This piece was honored with third place at the Palm Springs International Playwriting Festival, where Nathan read the play alongside Pat Carroll, Barbara Rush, and Ian Abercrombie.

Talent - Director/Producer Maurice Moore

In earlier posts, I blithely mentioned Maurice Moore as "the director", without so much as the briefest explanation, as though you and he needed no introduction, but were already good friends from waaaay back.

Let's fix that.

I met Moe... I dunno, 4-5 years ago.  We've worked on different projects together, in a variety of capacities: I directed him in Mind Reader 8 (which he also acted as producer on), I edited his short film "In One Lifetime", he directed (the short version of) a script I wrote, "The Maid".

And those are just the projects I've worked with him on.  The man's got a ton of other credits to his name, in a bunch of other capacities.  He's been busy acting, writing, producing, and directing.  And not just movies, but plays, classes.  Etc.

As an actor, he started early:  When he was a kid, he had a speaking role in Spielberg's classic "The Color Purple".  He's since gone on to work for other high-profile directors:  Alan Parker ("The Life of David Gale" with Kevin Spacey and Kate Winslet), Marcus Nispel ("Texas Chainsaw Massacre" with Jessica Biel, produced by Michael Bay), and Steve Mims ("One Eye Peeled", where Moe played five different characters).

As a producer, he founded ReelEyes Productions in Austin, then F.L.O.a.T Films in Los Angeles.  He's produced a number of short films (including the aforementioned Mind Reader 8) as well as a feature film (Alan Ray's Deadland Dreaming).

As a director, he's done plays (Athol Fugard’s "Master Harold and the Boys", Bruce Bonafede’s "Advice to the Players", and August Wilson's "King Headley II") and a run of music videos and short films for his F.L.O.a.T Films entity.

And I haven't even mentioned his writing.

Let's just say that, for every project I've seen him work on (both mine and other's), he was The go-to-guy.  The man gets it done.

So when Moe told me he wanted to option Sixufus?  I knew that it would get done, and by a man who would do it with excellence and professionalism.

And to close, it turns out that Maurice's (director's) demo reel is on the web.  Check it: