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Hello all! As is tradition, we kick off the year with a blog post going over every project we have. I'll try at least. As expected, 2025 was a pretty busy year. 2026 will involve you getting to see the results of all of that work. BRIMSTONE TERRACE Let's get the big one out of the way. This took up a majority of our time last year and now it's heading out into the world. Our little sneak preview in Kansas City back in November went really well. We scored the award for Best Animated Feature while we were there. That was nice of them! It's going to be a minute before we hear about any further screenings, so right now the film is cryogenically frozen until the time comes. One thing we can show you in the meantime is the trailer! Not right this second. Like, next week! We'll be doing a live stream on our Twitch channel where we are all going to hang out and watch it with you. Doesn't that sound fun? It's happening Tuesday the 6th at 7pm central. Be there or be square! Or watch it the next day when we post it. Do what ever you want. I'm not the boss of you. PRELIMINAL REFRAMING This short film also had a screening in November and it also went very well! Here's the thing: it's screening again in a couple weeks at the Old Times Not Forgotten Film Festival. The fest is January 17th - 18th in Derby, KS at the Derby Plaza Theater. I actually popped by last year and it was pretty fun. Can't wait to pay them another visit.
Hey everyone! Yet again we found ourselves in a string of months with non-stop updates that piled up until we reached this point. This might be one of the most exciting months we've had yet and you're about to see why.
Just a brief update as we check in for July!
The biggest news is that A COMPLEX HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES will be screening at the Tallgrass Film Center on Saturday, June 19th at 3pm. The show is free to attend, so come out, see the film, swarm Chris (who will be present). In the meantime, as a promo, we released a video with Chris giving five film recommendations that pair well with the themes of his documentary. You might be able to tell when we shot this one...
Other than that, not a lot to report. Still doing monthly streams. We are fulfilling our promise to marathon the original BRIMSTONE TERRACE web series on Twitch. That will also take place on the 19th around 7pm (central). After the marathon, a few of us who were involved with the original will be chatting about the experience and how it differs from the upcoming film. Should be fun. Maybe a little embarrassing. Who knows.
- Tyler
Hello everyone!
I almost did a good job keeping up with updates during that campaign. Now it’s almost the end of June and there’s a lot to say. BRIMSTONE TERRACE The campaign ended in May and we received a decent amount of help. I’ll take the opportunity to extend another thank you to everyone who helped! Before it ended we released a behind the scenes video featuring many of the voice talents from the film. Oh look! Here it is!
We also did our first Twitch stream in quite a while. David Young, Jillian and I were joined by special guests Tori Kamal and Melissa White for a stream counting down the final hours of the campaign. It was a lot of fun, we showed off a few animatic clips and ended up promising a few additional streams if we hit certain goals. We did in fact hit a few of those goals and now we will be streaming a marathon of the original 2013 series in July and we’ll be doing a cooking stream featuring segments of our upcoming Brimstone themed cook-book in August. We also did one last weekend where we announced a bunch of the updates you’re about to read. All this to say, there is a lot going on over on the IC Twitch channel. So I dunno. Maybe follow it or something to get notified when we’re live.
On the production side of things, we’ve been making major strides. Animation is complete! We are now onto the compositing phase, while Jillian revs up for the sound mix. As of last week, I actually finished compositing the first act. So we’re making very good progress. Hopefully that holds up. PRELIMINAL REFRAMING Speaking of Jillian, she recently completed work on a short film of her own called PRELIMINAL REFRAMING. It is an experimental narrative, sort of sci-fi leaning short and may be a piece of a larger idea. We’ll be digging into release possibilities for that in the coming months. A COMPLEX HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES Great news for any Wichitans wanting to check out Christopher Strong’s documentary feature! We will be screening at the Tallgrass Film Center on July 19th. Tickets will be available soon, so keep an eye out. Chris will also be in attendance, so be sure to bombard him with questions when the movie is over. Not during the movie. That would be rude. I think that does it for now. We have a few more things on the horizon that we’ll be sure to let you know about. After a sizable gap, of course. Wouldn’t want to keep this blog updated frequently or anything crazy like that! - Tyler
It’s Alan’s first night in Hell and he’s getting surprise visit.
Check out the first clip from BRIMSTONE TERRACE and consider supporting our Indiegogo campaign!
Hello all!
As mentioned in previous posts, we've been working crazy hard on our animated film BRIMSTONE TERRACE this year. Recently, we launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo in order to raise funds to finish the film and begin distribution. We also want to give you a chance to get involved and get some neat perks. Including blurays, books, vinyls and more! You can take a look at our pitch video to see us gab about it. Honestly, I think it does a pretty good job of painting a picture of what we're wanting to accomplish with the film itself. In a few days, we will release the first clip from the film! We just finished putting it together last Sunday and I can't wait for everyone to see it. I recently screened it at an event in Kansas City and I was pleased with the response. Stay tuned to our social media over the next month to get updates and visit our campaign page to learn more! - Tyler
If we posted this a week ago, we would've been telling you how excited we were to announce the premiere of the film. However, First City Film Festival, which was set to be the premiere screening, had to cancel the event this year. It's a sad announcement to have to make. We've enjoyed screening there in years past and we hope they are able to bounce back for next year. As for our premiere, we're cooking something up. Don't you worry.
PODCAST We've kicked off our 11th season of the Illumination Cinema Movie Podcast. Starting with our annual Golden Jamies episodes and more recently, Direct to Dumpster Vol. 10. Be sure to stay tuned. There will be lots of great episodes this season.
Man, this is awkward. I haven't updated this thing since September. I'd say I had a good reason, but...
2024 Catch Up Probably the biggest thing that happened between posts was the premiere of ARRIVE ALIVE at Tallgrass. It was yet another great year. You'll have to take my word for it. I didn't take any photos. We had a really good turn out though. We're excited to see where we'll go next with it. Also, vaguely related our scores for ARRIVE ALIVE and PERSONAL HISTORY are now on Spotify. Lastly, as of December, we wrapped up our tenth season of the podcast! My goal was to get 30 episodes, but we fell just short. The last few months of the year were very busy. You'll see why. A COMPLEX HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES In the gap between updates, we finished Chris's documentary. We completed the edit just before Halloween. This is new territory for us, so navigating the release of the film next year will be a journey for sure.
The film is a blend of retelling the original story and concepts for what would have been a second and third season all sort of packaged in a digestible new story. I'm writing and directing with the help of my producers David Wayne Young and Jillian Elaine. Needless to say, I've been developing the story for a very long time. There are notes in my phone from over a decade ago that are finally becoming scenes. We've worked really hard to make sure audiences new and old are able to enjoy it.
Production started in the summer of 2023 with Tori Kamal, Jamie Zin and I returning to voice our respective characters in a crazy three-studio international voice over session. Since then, we've been balancing working on two other features as well as commissioned projects in order to keep this one afloat, while also trying to squeeze in time to work on it. The good news is, we're about 2/3 of the way through animation on it. That said, there is still a lot to do. 2025 will be a busy year with a major focus on producing this film. There will be so much more to share in the coming months! Hopefully that means I'll keep this blog updated too. We'll see. - Tyler |
