Sketchy Characters

Today I met with the newest member of the Bug House animation team, Dwight Hill.  After being initiated into the Bug House tribe by ingesting the obligatory Joshua Tree waffle fries, he shared his sample ROUGH sketches (his emphasis, not mine) of three of the characters. So below in order are: Dusty (our protagonist and owner of the controversial pet bug), Alice (Dusty’s perfectly coiffed nemesis), and one minor character: the Show-and-tell boy with the Venus Fly trap. 

This week I’m meeting with two more illustrators.  I am giving all the illustrators a storyboarding assignment, and we will be meeting up again in January to share them.  Until then, I'll be updating the blog with more sample sketches as I get them. 

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And my eye is nearsighted.

So there’s this bug in Bug House.  He’s not a particularly attractive bug.  In fact, he is quite a hideous creature, and it is this Visually Unfortunate nature that causes all of the shenanigans in the movie. As he is the keystone of this script, one thing that Jess and I talked about in our last meeting was what our bug would actually look like.   She then said she would draw up some rough sketches, just to get a general idea of the form of this beast. 

Now, It should be noted that I have an abnormally high tolerance to bugs. It really borders on a disorder.   I had pet tarantulas.   I didn’t want the spider to die at the end of the TV-movie version of It because he had cute eyes.  Any creature feature marathon that includes giant bugs eating large portions of a metropolis is instant Kryptonite to my weekend productivity. So when Jess drew up this rough sketch of her proposed idea for Bug House’s eight-legged, eight-eye, fangy monstrosity, I responded with the following text:

“I want him as a pet.” 

I might have to forfeit my vote on this matter. 

Help Wanted. Preferably Help Who Can Draw Significantly Better Than Me.

Jess and I met today to bat around some more ideas for Bug House and do some preliminary sketches.   We came to two main conclusions:  

1)      Joshua Tree has some damn good waffle fries. 

2)      We need help. 

(Pretty much in that order too.  I didn’t have breakfast. Don’t judge me.)

Right now we are looking for: 

·         Illustrators

·         Storyboard artists

The film is being produced around the Boston area, so you will have to be able to come to Boston for meetings and production work.  If you’re interested in learning more about the project, email Jenn at bughousemovie@gmail.com

All Great Things Start With Blueberry Beer

Well, maybe not all great things.  But this thing, certainly. 

When I wrote Bug House, I envisioned it as a short live action film.  After sending it around to several producers, I realized that this was incorrect.   The script demanded to be animated.  Awesome!  This is going to be great!  I love animation!

Except...I can’t draw. At all, really.  Especially people.  Any time I try to draw a person, they look like the poster from the movie  Communion.  And there are people in Bug House. 

So I put a call out on Facebook for animators. 

A writer friend of mine suggested Jessica Therrien, a local artist who I’ve had the pleasure working with on a short film for the 48 hour film festival some years ago.  After two months of having completely incompatible schedules, against all odds we were both able to meet at the same time on the same day at Joshua Tree Bar and Grill in Davis Square, and Bug House was officially in production. 

We made a pact to meet every two weeks to keep production rolling (for the record, there was no blood exchanged in this pact, but the bar does have the best blueberry beer on the planet. Hops do run thicker than water).  This blog will be updated after every meeting.   Sometimes with sketches, sometimes with production challenges, and often with food and beverage reviews.  In the meantime, check out the About the Bug House Movie page.