Pepe and Lucas - Index

Looking back at the many posts I created for Pepe and Lucas, I thought it might be a good idea to provide links to the biggest sections.

1 - Pepe the Clown

2 - Lucas the Mime

3 - The Magician

4 - The Clown Car

5 - The Town Square

6 - The People

7 - Matte Paintings

8 - Color and Lighting

9 - Movie Poster Development

10 - Promotional Materials

11 - Additional Environments

12 - Storyboards

Pepe and Lucas - Some Storyboards!

The average trailer Brain Zoo handles is usually between a minute and a half and two minutes, with more expensive ones lasting longer. For just a minute and a half story, I might need to create a couple hundred story frames. Pepe and Lucas was much longer and required a lot more work, probably more than for any other project I've worked on. We also had a lot more time on our hands and a lot more freedom, so the story changed often as we wrapped our heads around tone, character development, pacing, and length of time. Rather than show frames that made it into Pepe and Lucas, I thought it would be fun to show some of what didn't make it into the final cut.

Pie Launcher Sequence

I mentioned earlier when I posted the pie launcher that we had originally planned for the battle sequences to progress from small to larger, and from using standard props to more over-the-top outrageous ones. This would take about 3 bouts. Below, I've uploaded some of the early fighting and the pie launcher sequence. It was a lot of fun, but you can see how this would have quickly become the whole film.

  And from here we transition into the chase scene that's in the short.

Ending on the Magician

We also had multiple endings as we played around with how big a part the Magician would have to play as well as how much screen time to give him. Just like the pie launcher sequence, this ended up becoming too large and we really cut down the Magician's involvement to just the last minute of the short so we could maintain focus on Pepe and Lucas.

Pepe and Lucas - The story continues...

Now you've seen virtually all the pre-production work that I was involved in to help bring Pepe and Lucas to life. However, we've created a few teaser pieces to expand the story in the future. I've already mentioned that in the world of Pepe and Lucas, all forms of performance entertainment other than magic have lost favor under the control of the Magician's Guild. Consequently, all the practitioners of those arts have been pushed to the fringes of society. Keeping that in mind, we wanted to expand the story to the world outside of Starlight City by sending the unlikely trio of Pepe, Lucas, and the Magician on a road trip. Their goal would be to escape the clutches of the ruling Magician's Guild and bring popularity back to clowning, miming, and all other entertainment forms in danger of becoming lost arts. Their trip would focus on returning to the places from their past that shaped them into the entertainers that they have become.

Traveling Circus

The traveling circus where Pepe grew up and learned his craft. Much like his gadgets, this multi-tiered big top on wheels is full of hidden gadgets and rooms. Driving from town to town putting on a show, waning audiences have caused it to fall into disrepair on the outskirts of town. What can our heroes do?

Mime Training Center

B/W study.

The massive rock garden surrounding the Mime Training Center, a school shrouded in mystery as well as mist. It lies abandoned at the top of massive balancing rocks. Only one with the gift can enter and only a master can leave.

I did a lot of b/w studies to get a sense of mood and atmosphere as we were really trying to establish a world that was full of epic places that were once great, but were now abandoned. I loved the middle column that had the most supernatural lighting, but we didn't want to introduce anything "magical" since that was the Magician's stock in trade, even if his power relied on smoke and mirrors.

At the center, a giant shrine to the deceased founders of miming. With no one left to care for it, the school is being absorbed by the wilderness.

Prop House

The prop house where the magician grew up dreaming big and learning the secrets of illusion making. Hard times have hit here as well. As time has passed, the expanding city has built a dense network of freeways over the area, leaving a once prosperous area forgotten.

Inside, the Magician makes his way through a surreal labyrinth of sets and props to the place where he decided to become the man he is.

I hope you like these pieces as much as I enjoyed making them. Hopefully, the future will bring further adventures into the world of Pepe and Lucas.

Pepe and Lucas - Posters and Postcards

Voila! Bet you didn't see this one comin'! The poster you see directly below is the face of Pepe and Lucas. We put up all of the mockups I created and talked about what we expected out of the poster and what just appealed the most. One of the things I liked most about this poster was how well the title fits in there. When I was designing highly narrative posters, I often drew the characters and just made sure there was space for a title somewhere. Here, the we managed to make the title a large element with plenty of breathing room, but we still have the opportunity to put all of the main characters on display as well as the environment. With everyone looking at each other like something's going to happen and the gazes creating that circular movement around the title, there's a nice air of mystery. I also just liked that we had a camera angle that I don't see often in movie posters.

We also did an alternate poster for festival promotions and giveaways etc. We chose this frame because it catches Pepe in one of those rare moments when he's vulnerable, and it offers a little bit of the world behind him. Our other motivating factor was that we'd used this image in an e-postcard and it always helps to be consistent in your imagery to give peoples memory a little kick.

Below, I've uploaded a couple of the main versions of our promotional mailer.

 Like a polaroid.

 The heavy black gave me the idea to play with the frame design like you might see in some old silent films.

 This is the one we ended up going with. Cropping in helped. So did reducing the contrast, which is the opposite direction I usually go in, but here seemed to helped clarify things.

Pepe and Lucas - Movie Poster Development

One of the last things I did for Pepe and Lucas was design the movie poster. In my mind, that was a pretty quick job. Just create an image that encompassed the heart and soul of the short or create an awesome montage like a Drew Struzan poster. Simple. Like so much of Pepe and Lucas, this was to be yet another learning experience. I took a movie poster class in art school and one of the assignment challenges was to design a poster for Forrest Gump. My teacher told us that he chose this movie because it contained so many genres within it and could be promoted in any number of ways. It was a love story, a war epic, a historical drama, a comedy, a buddy movie, etc.. It had everything. I came to find that the genre blending in our short created much the same challenge. So I set about trying to cover as many possibilities as I could.

 I began setting up a conflict.

 I grabbed a couple frames from the animatic.

 I took inspiration from zany comedy action movie posters like It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. I spent a lot of time playing with title placement.

 Eventually, I started involving the Magician as a dark, looming presence.

 Even though making money doesn't end up being the real victory, it is what causes the conflict to escalate to epic proportions. I decided very early that I didn't want to reveal the characters' "powers" or hint at a possible friendship or romance. If the twists are what make your story unique, you don't want to ruin the surprise for your audience.

 I eventually moved from just character sketch ideas to more finished color comps utilizing characters from the animatic or from the concept art. Something to get us just that one step closer to a more finished idea.

 I had started investigating poster ideas that just introduced the characters in some kind of a composition without actually alluding to the story or conflict. Just introducing them as appealing characters.

 I found this actually gave a little more mystery and anticipation and really highlighted what we had set out to do -- create an awesome company portfolio piece that demonstrated our studio's capability with a strong emphasis on character design and animation.

 I had just about exhausted all of my ideas at this point, but my co-worker Tony Vasquez suggested focusing on elements other than the faces. The hats and the shoes were all very distinct and were strong symbols for each character.

There's no police presence, even after all the destruction and mayhem, but I liked Tony's suggestion to do a literal character lineup. This may seem like a lot of posters and in fact, I cut out a chunk that were subtle variations on many of these. However, this image is one of only a handful of images that the audience gets to see to convince them to watch our short. Here more than anywhere else, we need to cover all the bases.
I don't make movie posters for our products much at BZ, but this opportunity ended up being very enlightening. It reminded me how less is so often more - less story and less character (or rather, cropping the character for a better composition). I feel like if we'd highlighted the action and the battles, then that's all anyone would have expected, but also all they would have wanted to see as well. Action and effects are so eye catching, and we really wanted an eye catching image that also intrigued the imagination. We needed to entice someone to step into our genre blended world to see what would happen. In my next post I'll show you the final movie poster we created as well as some of the promotional images we created for the film.