Bob and his Monster Need You!

Remember Bob Nelson and his crew, who appeared in the Backbrain a while back in relation to a giant monster film they’ve got on the boil? Well, it seems the film is now officially called Sacrifice and, as reported by RoboJapan, Bob is trying to find ways of getting some funding to push the project to a higher level.

On 22 September, they will be releasing the opening chapters of the film’s story. The first chapter will be a free download (from the blog), and the second chapter a $1.25 PDF download from the Brick Cave Media online store.

Says Bob:

“Starting on the 22nd, each week, people will be able to purchase a new chapter online for the $1.25 … or, as an option, they can just pay $20 upfront and they will receive all of the chapters electronically (as PDFs) as they come out (20 Chapters total) — one per week.

These sales will be how we raise money for the movie production, so the more people that purchase the chapters, the more rescources we will have to make a better movie.”

Can’t be fairer than that. Check out the first one and if you see potential, you can help to make it happen by doing your own little bit to drive the production along.

Brick Cave Media will also be hosting a chatroom discussion where visitors can ask the questions that are festering in their minds or more passively “listen” to a small indie movie production discussion. This will take place on Tuesday 30 September at 7:30 pm Pacific Time. Bob and crew will be using AIM for the chatroom and will post the name of the “room” on the blog that day.

Creating the Monster

In the meantime, Kaiju Search-Robot Avery talked to Mike Robinson, the FX and Art Director for the project, and asked him some questions about how the monster would be created. Here’s what Robinson said in reply:

“At the start I wanted to mention that things are still very fluid and therefore subject to change. Having said that, here are some answers to at least a few of your questions.

Although admittedly time consuming, to make the most realistic picture the effects that will be used are going to be almost, if not completely, all CGI. We presently have our own dedicated systems of suitable capacity. The software that we now possess will be of some use to the production of the effects and the creation of the creature. However, more capable software will be procured in the near future. We are anticipating that the proceeds from the sale of the chapters will be sufficient to acquire additional computers and software to augment what we have. We are looking at commercial items that have been used to make larger-budget films, but at a bargain price, as they have technically been superceded by more recent software advances.

Use of green-screen will play a fairly prominent role in the creation of some of the scenes and their surroundings. Again, a believable creature and realistic visual effects is the goal.

There will only be the one creature, which, for the sake of prudence, will not be “unveiled” for a couple of reasons. For a start, we still have yet to digitally render it. We have our 2D image of what it will look like, but it has not been made into a 3D digital image yet and might still undergo some minor modifications before this all rolls out. We also want to maintain a sense of suspense and anticipation, although (if we release a trailer), it’s possible that some quick glimpses of its body in shadow or through NVDs could be seen.

Hope this has been informative. Certain additional details will, of course, be revealed with each new chapter released.

Excited yet? Well, now’s your chance to check it all out, get excited and then contribute to the making of a giant monster epic!

•  Official Sacrifice Development blog website