I, like
most microfilmmakers, have often thought about the prospect
of making a comic-based film. After Robert Rodriguez teamed
up with Frank Miller (and lost his Director's Guild membership
in the process, I might add!) to make Sin City, the
future for true adaptations of comics-to-film finally seemed
possible.
It was
only as I pondered this thought a month ago that I realized
the sheer absurdity of the non-authentic comic based movies
that old Hollywood churned out from the '50's to the '90's.
Comic book movies should have been the easiest adaptation
for any filmmaker in the history of the motion picture industry.
Why? Because when you make a comic book into a film, you
already have your script, shot sheet, and storyboard completed!
It's like the Bisquick of filmmaking: just add water and
bake. Or, in our case, just add actors and shoot!
I realized
that a natural synergy could and should exist between comics
and films. A synergy that has been almost completely absent
in old Hollywood, despite how many comic franchises they
own. If done properly, this synergy could unlock the creative
forces of comics and film in a way that could propel both
beyond their normal limits. But in order to do that, there
would have to be simple, fair agreements that allowed collaboration,
rather than the highly demarcated boundaries of the Hollywood
infrastructure.
With
that in mind, I started thinking about connecting indie
comic creators with microfilmmakers. Indie comic creators
wante their stories told as they wrote them and we, as microfilmmakers,
want to tell comic-style stories with a definitive visual
look to them. If the two could be brought together, then
we would be a force to be reckoned with. Even more importantly
than that, we would have a decided advantage that Hollywood's
red tape has excluded them from.
I have
taken this thought to comic creators around the country
and found that they were very interested in joining with
this synergistic revolution. So much so that, as we open
our Comic-to-Film section
in this issue, we have 19 comics from 9 different creators
who are interested in having their work made into films
and shorts. And this is just the beginning, for we are in
the process of connecting with a brand new comics distributor
that is interested, not only in allowing microfilmmakers
to make their comics into films, but also in helping microfilmmakers
write and storyboard scripts from the treatment level on!
Stay tuned, for exciting new things are happening here at
Microfilmmaker Magazine!
