Trailer launch and ANNECY 2019!

This was a shocking moment to say the least!

Where to begin!?

What a spring this has been! Lets start with May.

May 15th I posted the trailer for Normans Island to youtube and other social media outlets. The feedback has been great! Check it out below if you haven’t seen it yet. Lots of great folks helped me with sound and music, mainly my pals Toby Hulse did the sound design and mixing, with David Menzel doing the music. My friend Barry Duncan of IF did the title designs as well. Thanks so much guys!

So beyond that, the trailer consisted of work done mainly by myself, Nathan, and one of my oldest buddies, Brad Sorochka. He’s a fantastic 3d modeller and I couldn’t have done anything without him. His work really elevated this piece!

Also, another old pal Ryan Olson, lent his animation skills to the piece and animated a number of shots. He killed it!

The kind folks over at Unity helped us spread the word with this project by writing up a nice blog post, and an in-depth interview cataloging a behind the scenes look at how we made this thing. Having your work featured next to Pixar, Disney and Valve is pretty insane. We are incredibly humbled by all that!

Unity’s “Shrine page” that features some of their highlighted works.

After about two weeks of the trailer stuff, I headed off to the Annecy International Film Festival in France early June! And let me tell you, it was INSANE.

So shortly after landing my friend Dave from Real Good Liars tweets out the image linked at the top of the page. The kind folks at Unity really got behind Norman’s Island and were promoting it quite heavily at the festival.

As a complete indie studio with no budget, seeing your project featured on a billboard in the center of a film festival is completely mind blowing. Its a dream come true. I could not ask for a better introduction to potential business partners than “Hi! We’re making Norman’s Island. If you’d like to see it, just look on that billboard behind you!”.

One of the many posters featured around Annecy

I pitched the project to anyone that would be interested in hearing me talk about it. Thankfully, most people seemed to like it. Some thought that it was too action heavy for their network etc - which is fine, great feedback! But most folks that I pitched it to seemed to like it, so with any luck at all perhaps we will find a partner for Norman and bring it to life for all you!

Besides all the buisness-y stuff, Annecy is a great place to explore and connect with other incredible artists. Let me talk a bit about that!

Behind that building is Cafe Des Arts, where all the animation folk grab a beer and connect!

Animators and Animation type people are all super friendly, and I learned that everyone goes to Cafe Des Arts after the festival to grab a beer and chat. I met so many incredible people from all over the world. I went from knowing almost no one at the festival to knowing so many people by the end of the week! So fun!

Here are a few other photos from the week in France!

I hope to go back next year, and bring the rest of us Little Mountaineers along!

The Unity booth with some art from Norman’s Island!

I did an on camera interview talking about the project and how we made it!

Beautiful town, great people!