One man Feature Length film! Archon Defender

#1

I love searching the net for CG artists who in essense are doing movies themselves.

Sometimes they are not the best modellers, the best animators, or the jack of all trades but somehow they work hard and make something only a few have accomplished.

Guys like this show it can be done! The product they create is not Pixar qualilty but it is getting there.

I’d love to see more artists like this working together or at least more great artists going this route. It would be neat to see.

I wanted to use this post to introduce a few of those one man features being done and maybe share their experiences on this thread.

#2

Archon Defender
Running Time: 65 minutes
Time to Complete: 3 years
Available: Soon

I hope you enjoy the preview. Looks like a cool movie in the style of Doug. You remember Doug on Nicktoons! Well it looks like Doug with a mix of Full Metal Alchemist and Saving Private Ryan. Looks like an intriguing story.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4GoVCZ_ulM&feature=sub

Artist Notes:

Archon Defender follows the path of a young woman, Colette, as she seeks her way through adversity to redemption, as the world she once knew is torn apart by war and tyranny.

Artist Blog: http://archondefender.blogspot.com/ Great how to’s and sneak peaks into the movie.

#3

We Are the STrange

Running Time: 85 minutes
Time to Complete: 2 years
Available on DVD and online: Now
DVDs sold: ??
Money made: ?? Let’s ask him! Apparently enough to live off of to make another film.

The original and creepy film made by one man in the span of 2 years. Featured at Sundance Film festival and featured in Wired Magazine.

Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qCSahatkbk

Entire movie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jlD7EVSJFw

Artist Blog
http://mysteriousdollfilm.blogspot.com/ Great tutorials on ZBrush to C4d and back again tutorials and on film making!

#4

Killer Bean Forever

Running time: 85 minutes
Time to Complete: 4 years
Available: Now
DVDs sold: ??

Killer Bean Forever is created by Jeff Lew an animator who has worked on several Hollywood productions and descided to do his own movie. Out of the Indie CG filmmakers this one appears to be the best looking one out of the bunch. Check out 3d World Magazine for interviews on the process. I got all my copies featuring Jeff Lew’s interview.

Artist Website: http://www.jefflew.com/
Movie Website: http://www.killerbeanforever.com/

Trailer: http://www.killerbeanforever.com/trailer.html

#5

Minushi
Time to Complete: 4 years
DVDs Sold: ??
Running Time: 90 minutes

A 2d flash animated feature length film. It was free online for awhile. Definately a great story and was fun to watch especially the artists production blogs, one of which covers sound fx, something we don’t always see in CG. The style is okay and unique but it definately makes up in story. I dig the style and the effort put into this series. Not 3d but there are some 3d elements. :slight_smile:

Artist Blog: www.minushi.com please check out the sight as it has a couple of HOW TOs and goes in depth on the production.

#6

I’m amazed with the speed: an hour-long cg-movie in several years? Also it’s interesting what cg-background they have. “The killer bean” creator is an animator. Also it’s interesting what the sales are.

#7

Haruwo!

Time to complete: 2 years
Available on DVD: Now but Japan only I think
Length: 35 minutes

Anime at it’s best. Great style, great look. What it lacks in animation it does make up in style. This is a fun animation. Hard to understand the Japanese words but there are subtitles.
Great animation from our friend in Japan.

Artist Sight: http://www.shaoguee.com/blog/?page_id=118

#8

EMTM
Production time: 8 months
Length: 23 minutes
DVD: ???

Tom and Jerry
Production time: 9 months
LEnght: 12 minutes

I know these two have been on frontpage at CGtalk but I love these animations. The fact is within 1 1/2 years he had over 34 minutes of finished animation done.

Artist sight: http://www.brianjin.com/

#9

I’m amazed with the speed: an hour-long cg-movie in several years? Also it’s interesting what cg-background they have. “The killer bean” creator is an animator. Also it’s interesting what the sales are.

I definately interested in the sales of the DVDs and other items associated with it. I mean if these start making money and a good business model comes out of these you can definately have artists making a living doing their own animations vs having to rely on someoen else for work.

Granted I don’t think everyone can do it but I think more could get into it and more would if they knew their investment can pay off.

If you know of any other films being done by one man, no man or low man films that are longer than 15 minutes then please share!! I’ll be posting them here as I find them and hopefully we can inspire a few others to jump into doing it. Maybe even collabing more and working together to not only tell their own stories but make something financially successful.

The time is getting alot faster in making a film. Remember these guys had their first endeavor. Many of them grow in speed the second time around. MDot mentioned getting his production time down to a year.

#10

Aoki Tact, the “Haruwo” creator has a new nearly-feature-length feature out, "The Asylum Session"Trailer on his site

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#11

www.xombified.com
Time to complete: varied

I hear there is a live action feature length film in the works. I love this series. When put together it makes an entire 75 minute movie.

#12

Aoki Tact, the “Haruwo” creator has a new nearly-feature-length feature out, "The Asylum Session"Trailer on his site

Thanks for the link, this looks cool! How did you find it?

Making such a time and efforts investmens is a big risk. Untill we know the profit sales are, it’s all looks good and well.
If such people could find someone sponsored advertising for their movies, it could maybe work. Nobody is going to watch a movie if they hear about it in the first time. I bet they need to spend millions to get a worldwide advertising.
And you will challenge with such

It is an investment but really an investment in time. Many of the folks have skills. Money wise it is cheap.

For these smaller movies you will not be able to compete with Pixar but you can find a niche market.

1,000 direct to DVD sales is around 10K-15K get into the 10,000 dvds sold and you are looking at 100,000k to 150,000k.

Keep costs low and you can do it off a website.

www.dreamlandchronicles.com makes a living off his comic book online.
I beleive he posted around 2500 a month on advertisements. He had to spend alot because he did not do all the modelling. Just imagine though doing all the work yourself or between two people. 2500 split in 2 for advertisements along is not half bad for some countries, but then again you can do merchandise, etc.

Hollywood is also looking online for properties and sometimes the deals are sweet.

Mainly you will be relying on niche market sales which can do quite descently but you have to intermingle with your market. Get out and promote your movie.

I mean there are realistic ways to make money based on your investment.

Comic book creators have made millions, why not this new generation of youtubers and online entertainers. At least enough to make a living if not millions of dollars.

I hope some of these guys we are posting, post some dvd sales or some money numbers. :slight_smile:

What about it guys, can you post some of your DVD sales?

#13

Making such a time and efforts investment is a big risk. Untill we know what the profit sales are, it’s all looks good and well.
If such people could find someone sponsored advertising for their movies, it could maybe work. Nobody is going to watch a movie if they hear about it in the first time. I bet they need to spend millions to get a worldwide advertising.
And you will challenge with such market sharks like Pixar and such. Isn’t it just a greedy move?

#14

The best looking one man animated project I’m aware of is probably “Cencorol”. Link

The other example that comes to mind is Bill Plympton, who has done several animated features singlehanded.

#15

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9GtU3xwLBQ

The best looking one man animated project I’m aware of is probably “Cencorol”. Link

awesome 2d anime action. Looks like a major team effort but one man?

I wanted to post some Indie movie stats for really small indie film sold through direct distribution. Self distribution that is.

4 Eyed Monsters

50,000 through Spout Campaign
5,000 in banner revenue
1,600 DVDs sold
1 Million online viewers
100,000 in broadcast and DVD retail release.

There were other avenues but for these guys they have made about 250,000 USD since the last check about a year and a half ago. No telling how much they have made since then.

So yeah it can be profitable.

#16

Apparently so. :shrug:Pretty phenomenal if that’s the case.
Oh, and the other example that come to mind is Voices of a distant star.

#17

There are several community-projects which doesnt have a strong financial background.
For example TWO, The Tin Woodman of Oz, (and SO, Scarecrow of Oz, which is the following story) should be mentioned. While not looking totally professional these are whole movies of 80 - 90 minutes telling a story done by a bunch of people in their sparetime:
Link to TWO on Youtube

These one is an amazing project too. While not a pure CG-movie, it has the effects done by one person with a low-budget 3dprogramm (Hash Animation:Master) and the whole movie was created at a really low-budget to non-budget base. (people there were working in the sparetime, borrowed stuff from friends, etc to get a very well done movie out of it.
Pendragon

Fuchur

#18

How about one woman?
http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/

 [img]http://viz.cwrl.utexas.edu/files/sita2.jpg[/img]
 
 
 She talks about distribution and sales here.[http://workbookproject.com/](http://workbookproject.com/)
 Good stuff to know if your going down this path.
Lovely movie by the way.
 
 [](http://workbookproject.com/)
#19

RoninCGT: I saw that one at an animation festival, it was quite funny and enjoyable.

This is a great thread and I can’t wait to see all of these films! I think we’re going to see a slow shift to online independent distribution becoming more common-place as hardware, software and bandwidth becoming cheaper and faster. I think it’s an exciting venture to take up!!

#20

I think self distribution works well. It has worked wonders for many years in the comic book industry.

Alot of CG films usually run into the animated kids cartoon, superheroes, more grown up animations, sci fi, anime, etc. About the same audience you’d find at a comic book conventions. Guess what? That audience is easy to find! Go where the nerds go and since someone said, “90% of cg artists are nerds and the other 10% are not but are pretending to be nerds to fit in with the nerds” we definately know where to find other nerds! :slight_smile: Scifi conventions, comicons, anime conventions, etc.

I’ve known comic book artists selling 200-1000 copies per show. Imagine selling 200-1,000 dvds at a comic book convention. 1,000x 20 = 20,000 or 200 x 20 = 4,000. I mean there are possibilites for each show. Opening a booth up under an independant is usually pretty cheap. That is just one avenue to make money and meet fans while building momentum.

I like the TINS WOODSMAN story TWO done by the Hash A:M team. It shows these collabs can be done.

KEy to CG productions and making a living doing it is keep it simple, keep it cheap, and get it out there. Low costs and anything is basically a return. :slight_smile: