Pre-Production

Efforts leading up to filming included development of the fictional company's logo, props used by the actors and seen in the background, and development of the futuristic GUI for the creepy AI character and related computer displays.

The film’s title, as seen on screen.

This symbol represents the presence of the AI character, and it shows up throughout Semaphore’s computer displays.

The visitor bracelet Sophia wears throughout her visit to Semaphore Animation Studios.

Tiles representing some Semaphore movie concepts. The first two are meant to represent alternate versions of Toy Story and Brave. The third is a movie about birds. The next four concepts come directly from Cameo’s script: a girl and her pig, a romantic comedy between a mongoose and a cobra, a submarine on Mars, and ghost octopus in space (some were supposed to be duds). The last concept is a nod to The Triassic, the original title for the film that inspired the main character to become an animator. Cameo changed the name of the movie to Mythos when she discovered there was dragon-themed footage freely available for common use, which meant we didn’t have to invent or license dinosaur-themed footage to use in the theater scene.

Posters

As we were working on the film, we would refer to Semaphore Animation Studios as “the PIXAR” of their world. In other words, Semaphore is that world’s most beloved animation studio, and has a seemingly unending string of major animated hits.

Of course, the idea wasn't to rag on PIXAR. We simply wanted to underscore the horror and sense of betrayal towards the end of the film.

Eventually I had the idea of creating a series of posters to put up on set. All the posters here are intentionally very similar to existing PIXAR films, even using the same fonts and stylings. If Semaphore is an alternate world’s version of PIXAR, these are the alternate versions of films we all know and love.

Post-Production

Post-production is the period after you’ve shot all your footage and you’re ready to start editing, do your color correction, and add any special effects. Real Artists has a lot of scenes with a variety of effects and motion graphic overlays.

Most of my time working on the film was spent designing surveillance overlays, computer display readouts, and producing detailed documentation for the motion graphics artist, Anna Rottke.

Documentation describing the details of a special effects shot. The time 3:49 to 3:53 refers to the time within Real Artists that this scene takes place. Within the world of the film, the audience at Semaphore watching Return to Mythos is 47 minutes and 30 seconds into the screening of their film.

Documentation describing the details of a special effects shot.

Artwork for the effects shot.

Final composite as seen in the finished film.

Documentation describing the details of a special effects shot.

Animated sequence showing Semaphore’s movie-development process.

Teddybear’s Tale corresponds to Toy Story, and Boudica, just behind it, is their world’s version of Brave.

Our film being sound-edited at Skywalker Ranch.

Marketing Campaign

As part of an online marketing campaign, I developed a website for Semaphore (the fictional animation company from the film that’s supposed be that world’s version of PIXAR). The site allows visitors to explore the characters and artwork of Semaphore’s hit movies.

Later I designed a conspiracy website depicting someone’s effort to catalogue Semaphore's various sinister doings and reveal them to the world.