UNEARTHING ANTEDILUVIAN

I'm happy to say most of the animation in "much to fear about summer" is complete, but I still have to cast actors and shoot the film this summer. So, what film do I make in the mean time? Well, I recently regained my love for Hollow Earth stories, so, prepare for a new short film, ANTEDILUVIAN.

ANTEDILUVIAN is based off the myth of the hollow earth, in which the world is hollow, and prehistoric life and advanced civilizations live there. Antediluvian is inspired by these tales. Although the world is not at the center of the earth, it is an entire a network of caves beneath a mountain. It's inspired heavily by the works of Jules Verne, whose book was so cool, I almost made a movie out of it once, my first true stop motion epic, who I'm certain that my pipe-cleaner plesiosaurs and Icthyosaurs are still lurking in my closet somewhere. Of course, I'm not going to make new puppets for the project, I'll just use ones I've made already. However, I did make one puppet for the project: the antediluvian gorilla:

This creature has an interesting backstory. In Jules Verne's novel Journey to the Center of the Earth, there's a mysterious chapter only included in certain editions of the book. It describes a dream sequence about a fight between a prehistoric ape and some sort of dinosaur. This is insanely weird, because:

1. This mirrors King Kong, but I've read books about the subject, and Verne's novel was never mentioned.

2. The creature is supposed to be a prehistoric gorilla, but no prehistoric gorillas were discovered at the time Verne wrote his novel. Perhaps, as David Standish suggested in his book HOLLOW EARTH, the ape is a representation of Verne's opinions on Progressive Creationism (God slowly changing creatures from one species to another to fit his plan), the ape regressing over the generations from it's prehistoric ancestors for new creatures to emerge.

So, he mystery of the Antediluvian Gorilla continues. The prehistoric gorilla in my movie was made from wire, foam, and black wool. The pictures above show his his face, restored with clay after it was all but destroyed during the animation process. The gorilla, Verne, will battle Harold, my swamp ape, as a sort of battle of the missing links, a tribute to king kong animators willis O'brien and Marcel Delgado.















There will also be a boneyard and mammoths, another reference to the story. The sets were simple green screen composites with plastic dinosaur bones and clay mushrooms. The mammoth, who sadly was torn apart before I could get a picture of him, is a mammoth skull with clay and wool wrapped around it.

Also, Ray is returning for the picture.
















Speaking of Ray, here's some test footage for Much to Fear about summer.
















When it's finished, I might even make a sequel. It's a fun little story with various references to Journey to the Center of the Earth and Edgar Rice Burrough's Pelucidar.

Please Comment. Hope you Enjoyed it!