Mars Trailer Starring Mark Duplass
Here’s a pretty unique-looking movie premiering at SXSW next month, and contrary to what the title might sound like, it’s not a sequel to Duncan Jones’ Moon! Mars is actually something quite a bit different: a sci-fi romantic comedy for the mumblecore crowd, if you can wrap your head around that. Starring Mark Duplass (Humpday, The Puffy Chair), it’s about a group of astronauts on a manned mission to Mars who deal with life, love, and boredom along the way.
The movie definitely stands out because of its unique animated style, which is somewhat reminiscent of Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly and Waking Life, although much more lo-fi. It also appears to have plenty of slacker deadpan humour, which may scare off some of the sci-fi geeks, but seems like an interesting combination to me. Director Geoff Marslett teaches animation at UT Austin and was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film. Check out a trailer for the film after the jump; for more info visit Swerve Pictures.
Comments (13)
This isn’t animated, it’s just an After Effects filter. It begs the question why it’s done this way.
Posted by swarez on February 10th, 2010Because it looks cool I guess.
From what I understand it is animated, at least the environments are. It was all shot in front of a green screen.
Posted by Sean on February 10th, 2010I sort had an idea like this after seeing A Scanner Darkly, the idea is to us the low fi effects to cover indie art direction, lighting, special effects and other things that separate the big budget films from indie. You can shoot fast and cheap, knowing the filters will cover all the lighting and art direction mistakes. I think its a creative way to get a story out there, but I think the effect will not be strong enough to carry an audience.
Posted by rus in chicago on February 10th, 2010The reason they do it is because trying to colour correct, green screen and model with live actors takes a huge amount of time and money. This way, you can cover a lot of the mistakes with the filter. I think the filter work is ok, but could be better – but hopefully the story will sell it – not the aesthetics.
Posted by David on February 10th, 2010Reminds me enough of Tom Goes to the Mayor for me to check it out.
Posted by Nick D on February 11th, 2010“This isn’t animated, it’s just an After Effects filter. It begs the question why it’s done this way.”
That’s exactly what I was thinking I can do that on my computer. No wait I’ve done that on my computer.
But still, Bravo for these guys. No name stars in a small movie. Hurray!
Posted by The Man on February 11th, 2010I don’t know why, but from looking at this trailer I just thought it was funny. I think it’s because I had my computer on mute by accident, but I thought it was very funny. After watching it over the second time I think it’s pretty funny where this whole Mumblecore movement is going. Some call the Mumblecore movement films that represent twenty somethings relationships. I guess it’s good to know that mars will be inhabited by indie hipsters, don’t get me wrong I love Andrew Bujalski’s films, but I think it’s kind of weird that they’re taking it to Mars. Anyway…I’m a bit of a fan with Duplass films so I would like to check this out.
Posted by Austin Guerrero on February 11th, 2010howdy. i actually made this film and stumbled across this looking for another write up. i am thrilled it is getting some attention. this was a complete grass roots effort. i hope a lot of you come check it out, and i’m glad for the back and forth about it.
one of two things i can clarify is the animation process. it was a two year process of animating, and isn’t just an after effects filter. in fact their is only after effects work in three scenes. it is a combination of a color filter/keying/automation program two of us wrote to use the colors from the live action actors and hand line work for details. all of the environments, backgrounds, and props–all of them–are all 100% animation. it was many many hours of work for all the animators and i would hate for people to assume their work was just pushing a button.
as any of you who have tried to use a filter to just make something look animated know…you’ll see that it becomes flickery and inconsistent. sometimes a cool look, but more like “Year of The Fish” and not like this. for a still maybe, but not for movement.
also, i am glad to catch some of the mumblecore buzz too…but in fairness a lot of mumblecore is characterized by the ad lib nature of the characters and the use of mostly unknown actors. i have to admit, we were completely scripted (with animation you pretty much have to be), and did have some fun actors in here (including mark, who is a great actor in his own right). liza weil (gilmore girls), cynthia watros (lost), paul gordon (happy poet), mike dolan (hamburger hill), as well as some non traditional actors like howe gelb, kinky friedman, and don hertzfeldt.
ok. i’ll stop interrupting. but that’s my 2 cents.
Posted by geoff on February 11th, 2010I like a lot of this experimental indie stuff. Duplass was pretty damn good in Humpday along with Josh Leonard, and that movie was completely improvised. That’s always a sign of good actors. Baghead was a decent little horror/comedy experiment as well.
This actually looks interesting. The animation style is simple but seemingly effective. I’ll definitely check it out.
Posted by Fatbologna on February 11th, 2010geoff could you explain why you choose this aesthetic? maybe a filmjunk interview?
Posted by rus in chicago on February 11th, 2010sure. been staying quite busy preparing for the film’s premiere…so maybe i could do a longer interview sometime…but here is a short version.
i wanted to create something in moving pictures that felt like an indie comic (aka a graphic novel). i wanted the characters to feel real, but also to feel very “pop”…i wanted them to look simple, colorful, and direct…and i wanted the story to be simple, colorful and direct. the visual in my head was something half way between the dreamy quality of films like waking life and the gritty semi-realism of a comic book.
sci-fi has mostly been treated in movies as dark and scary, or wild and action packed, or occasionally slap stick comedic, or like a puzzle of deep questions. honestly, i like all of these. but i wanted to treat space as approachable, though just barely out of reach…kinda of like romance often feels. so i wanted visuals that felt realistic — with actors expressions and faces recognizable, but also made just a little bit outside of our norm, with hyper real color, less organic detail, and free to exist in space, on mars, or wherever.
everything from the hair styles, to the color choices, to which details to keep were geared this way. i don’t know if it will be what people want to see or not…but for me it did end up looking a lot like what i had in my head (i did spend over a year developing the exact look i wanted).
i hope you guys get a chance to watch the film, and i will be curious to hear what folks think. the good and the bad. i have a thick skin.
thanks again for noting the film here! glad i stumbled upon it.
Posted by geoff on February 11th, 2010best,
geoff
Love the distinctive look of this, and the central idea. The generic twee indie-fux0r dialogue (and titles), not so much. Don’t want to be negging on this before I’ve seen it though, and I will definitely be checking this out.
Posted by DavidM on February 14th, 2010I saw the film at SXSW, and I really really loved it. Then again, I’m in the film, so I’m biased. It’s light and poppy and romantic and funny. It’s got a pretty quick pace and tight structure, which probably differentiates it from some of the mumblecore stuff.
Posted by James on March 16th, 2010Leave a Reply