From Inside nearing the end

December 27th 2007, 12:00am

Last Updated on July 27, 2021

So I like when I begin to see things that I had no clue ever existed. Like FROM INSIDE for example (and my topic). It was a graphic novel written by John Bergin, and now, after over 2 years, Bergin, who’s been adapting it on his lonesome, doing all of the work including the animation, the film is near completion, with little tweaks and scoring to do.

Upon stumbling across his blog, John Bergin made a great comparison of his animation versus the great LA JETEE, among others. I just found this magnificent:

When I cut the From Inside paintings into layers for animating (like cut-paper animation), I found that there was a point where a certain amount of animation caused the images to switch from being a surrogate for reality (paintings) to being what they actually were: pieces of cut paper moving around.

An example: compare the treatment of still photos in Chris Marker’s great La Jetee to how photographs are manipulated in The Kid Stays in the Picture. In La Jetee, we look past the actual photographs and feel as though there is a wider world beyond the edges of the screen. In The Kid Stays in the Picture, we know we are looking at small paper photographs that have been multiplaned — we don’t see a world, we see graphic design.

With From Inside I wanted to maintain the emotional impact that comes with having still images be read as a substitute for reality — of being evidence, a record, of actual events rather than pieces of paper moving before your eyes. I would animate right to the point where representations became real, physical objects and then take one step back to “painting.”

I assume you’re asking yourself, “What is this”, well it’s an animated film (duh) about:

Cee, a young pregnant woman who finds her self on a damaged train slowly transcribing its way across a bleak, apocalyptic landscape. Flood, war, starvation, and a plague of death threaten the train’s passengers. Cee struggles against these dangers while coping with the memory of her lost husband and the imminent birth of her child. The dark surrealism of her world and the complexities of her deep personal dilemma force Cee to make significant discoveries about her life and the life of her unborn child.

So it may take a little while for this film to come out, but click here for a little taste of whats to come. I must say, I’m excited.