Jan 18, 2016

Rob Valley talks about his epic new film "Pear Cider and Tobacco" (exclusive trailer premiere).

This year is just the beginning, but we already have a trailer for 2016's most epic project, a 1-minute hand-drawn short film from Robert Valley, which is 32 minutes away.

In addition to directing commercials and various short-story projects, Valley is a project of other people, from the Gorilla's music video to the Tron: Uprising series.

The main character of Pear Cider and Cigarets is a childhood friend of Valley's Techno Stypes, whose self-destructive spiral eventually led to his death. Lying in a Chinese hospital in desperate need of a liver transplant. Valais' own life is intertwined with Stypes' (not his real name) in a crazy true story that charges an animated autobiography into a gritty new territory.

Valley originally self-published pear cider and tobacco as a multi-volume graphic novel, but the plan was always to end with an animated film, he told Cartoon Brew. "The film is not just an adaptation from the book, but we wanted to take it a step further by actually animating the panels directly from the comics," says Valley. "This included some plans," he said."

With two decades of industry experience, dating back to MTV's classic Ion Flux breakout stint, Valley pretends its small crew his new and, by little, we're talking like one person. During the last half-decade, Valley produced all of the film's artwork and animations on its own.

Valley made tremendous efforts to protect the integrity of his personal story, including uncompromising about what he wanted to be in his films and funding production through animation with his own money. "I wanted to do it myself," he explained. "I was worried that people who were trying to invest money in my films probably wanted me to tell them what they thought," he said."I believe he's giving him an ongoing gig in Leica"I'm doing enough work to pay the rent, but I couldn't finish my film."

Valley aims to wrap pear cider this spring and get it to the festival and online by the summer, but needs a large amount of funding for music licensing and post-production. He will launch a Kickstarter campaign tomorrow to push the film beyond the finish line.

Cartoon Brew talked to Valley about the new project in an email:

Cartoon Brew: I know I've animated it in Photoshop before. Did you animate this movie too, or did you have a different process - especially impressive movies and 3D effects that you have achieved I know that Photoshop is not a perfect animation tool. TVPaint...Yeah, yeah TVPaint, I got it...But I'm not getting it on my computer. Not now, and I definitely did not have it on my computer back in 2012. I had a photoshop. on the back of my head,私は最終的に私は私の梨サイダーをアニメーション化するつもりだった方法を決定する必要があることを知っていましたbooks...my A book created entirely in Photoshop, my book already conveniently disassembled into animated layers.

3D effects...You mean this- A lot of layers are a bit warped in After Effects, and here's the key...Animate with Photoshop's Transform/Skew function. I use it a lot. It's a bit hard to get into here, but we'll cover all of that in the included script-to-screen book [which will be available on Kickstarter campaigns]. damn I have no secrets.

Your friend's techno was very "rock and roll", so it's fitting that you have designed a powerful soundtrack for both licensed and original songs, including Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo. Talk a little about how you approached the music of the film-

Robert Valley: I tell the story of pear cider through music - both the music we listened to when we grew up, and the music I was listening to while working on this project. Overall, the soundtrack for this 32-minute film includes 19 songs. What I really like is how the song is constructed and how it "kicks in" to the chorus at some point. When the visuals "kick in", when the songs "kick in", you get that nice satisfaction.

Multiple songs also gave the story a much broader meaning of the passage of time, and given that the Pear Cider story takes place over 25 years, it seemed just right. It was a completely random introduction, but it seemed to be a good fit. If you're lucky, he has a little time on a very busy schedule. He currently composes original songs for the side project "Mass Mental". In addition, Anitek has also composed some original music. I've previously worked with Anitech on the Shinjuku shorts I did a while ago and always thought his trip-hop Groove was just right for this type of animation. Anitek has composed some music so dark that it's absolutely filthy.

You are starting a crowdfunding effort tomorrow. The animation is already done, so what's the money being raised -

Robert Valley: Kickstarter is not just all music licenses, but pos even if all visuals are done, there's still a lot to do before the movie is finished. I am completely terrified and at the same time completely excited. I don't know how, but is there a way to finish the film by 2016/3? After sitting on my ass animated for the last few years, things are starting to kick into gear in the most exciting way.

London Passion Pictures, the producer of the Gorilla's animation video, is now named for the project. How are they involved-

Robert Valley: I had a long history with passion. The work of the Gorillas was not only done there, but also the rock band of the Beatles and Dance Central Cinema. In fact, all the highlights of my animation career were passionate - and most of my beer consumption took place across the street. It made perfect sense for me to reach out to them after the animation was over. I work with Cara Speller, who was a producer at Jamie Hewlett, and I wanted to be a huge Gorilla fan who wanted some of that mojo to be rubbed off on me. Passion has guided this project through post-production and music licensing as well as distribution and festival circuits.