Animation from the movie "Howl" (2010)



Howl is a 2010 American experimental film which explores both the Six Gallery debut and the 1957 obscenity trial of 20th-century American poet Allen Ginsberg's noted poem Howl. The film is written and directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman and stars James Franco as Ginsberg. (from wiki)

My role on Howl was as the animation art director, and animation production supervisor. I would take storyboards from animation director John Hays, and designs from art director Eric Drooker, and use them to direct the crew at "The Monk Studios" in Thailand. 

One of the biggest challenges we faced on Howl was figuring out how to bring John and Eric's vision to life on such a tiny animation budget. Working with CG supervisor Salvador Simo, we broke each scene down into 2D elements, 3D elements, cut-outs, matte paintings, and full 3D sets. The 2D sequences were animated and rendered by my students from "The Animation Workshop" in Viborg, Denmark who joined the crew in Thailand for 3-4 months.

For those that are interested, you can see the original proof of concept for the film  HERE.

From the final film... see some film stills HERE... and a few color scripts and designs HERE.