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The Making of "Mutant Aliens" by Bill Plympton

© Bill Plympton 2001

After completion of the principal animation for "Mutant Aliens", I was able to sit down and reconstruct on paper the making of the animated feature. I believe it's important to document the process, not only for myself but also for students and fans of animation. So, what follows is a short description of the making of "Mutant Aliens".For a more detailed look, please check out www.plympton.atomfilms.com/,where I'm broadcasting a 50-part video diary of the entire process. In 1998, following the completion and successful sale and release of "I Married a Strange Person", I was ready to start my fourth animated feature. Most of the reviews of "Strange Person" complained that although the humor was sharp and witty, the character and plot were lacking.

"Then, I happened to see a picture of Laika, the Russian Cosmonaut dog, in a magazine. My mind wandered, as it usually does when I feel an idea coming - whatever happened to Laika? Is he still up there? He must be mad as hell!"

I began writing the next script about twins who follow completely different paths. I had gotten halfway through the script and felt good about it - I thought it was a much more mature and sophisticated story, yet still with the Plympton humor. Then, I happened to see a picture of Laika, the Russian Cosmonaut dog, in a magazine. My mind wandered, as it usually does when I feel an idea coming - whatever happened to Laika? Is he still up there? He must be mad as hell! And there are probably lots of other experimental animals up there, circling the earth - monkeys, mice, etc. What would happen if they banded together and plotted revenge on earthlings?

The story concept sounded like so much fun - I started plotting the ideas and gags, making sketches of characters, battles, conflicts. I forgot about the twins idea and went full force into the Aliens story. I figured these animals needed a leader, so I conveniently abandoned an angry American astronaut up there to organize and train them.

© Bill Plympton 2001

In the past, I would make a great storyboard on my wall to play around with the ideas and plotting, but this time I wanted to try a different approach. Pierre Paquet, my French book distributor, had some success with my "Sleazy Cartoons" book in the French market, and suggested I write an original story for another book. I felt this could be a wonderful opportunity to organize my ideas in "Mutant Aliens". I began by doing very rough page layouts of the story, and it came out to about 200 pages, too long for one book, so we decided to do it in two parts. I wanted to keep the dialogue to a minimum, and have the visuals tell as much of the story as possible. Then, I did another, more finished version of the book in pencil, but with finer detail and shading. Pierre originally wanted to add color to my drawings, but I convinced him that the colors would hide the sensitive pencil lines.

There are three reasons why I released the storyboard first as a graphic novel:

1. I got a few bucks from the book advance to help pay for the making of the film.
2. It helped me more fully develop the story, characters, and layouts, and 3. It's a wonderful tool for publicizing the film before the release. Many of the Japanese anime films are released as comic books first, most notably Miyazaki's.

The book idea worked so well that I also got an American publisher, NBM, to release it and I believe it did even better in the U.S. The French title is "Mutants de l'Espace" and it was released in the Spring of 2000.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4


© 2000 Animation World Network