STOP MOTION ON MONSTER ISLAND
Filmmaker Jack (AMERICAS DEADLIEST HOME VIDEO) Perez called Fango with an update on his MONSTER ISLAND project, an MTV original movie he wrote with Adam Glass and will start directing next month. As originally reported here, ISLAND is a youth-oriented homage to creature features past, and Perez tells Fango, Weve figured out a way to do all the creatures Ray Harryhausen-style, with stop-motion. As far as I know, this is the first movie in a very long time to approach monster FX using that technique. I dont want to give away the specifics of what were creating, but were dealing with 25- to 50-foot creatures created with models on jungle sets, and we also have some full-sized insect props a THEM! The stop-motion is being done by the Bowes FX company here in Vancouver, where the movies live-action portion begins shooting October 6.
I want the movie to feel like the original KING KONG and 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD, so its not just a tribute to 50s giant-insect movies, Perez continues. And I cant compare it to something like EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS, which was done with CGI. To do it right, you really have to employ the effects they used in the period. I told the FX people, You have to imagine youre back in the 50s, using the techniques that were state-of-the-art then. Were doing it not as a parody, but playing it completely straight. Its kind of a compendium of homages, a love letter to these movies. I miss those films, I dont see them any more, and I think theres a certain charm thats missing from a CGI creature that you get from a stop-motion modelit occupies real space as opposed to cyberspace.
The human cast will be composed mostly of young unknowns, though Perez notes, Carmen Electra is playing herself, essentially occupying the Fay Wray role in KING KONG. The monsters get her, and our ragtag group of high-schoolers has to run a gauntlet of these creatures on Monster Island to rescue her. The director says that the stop-motion should be completed by the end of the year, with the movie premiering on MTV in early 2004.
Courtesy of Fangoria
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