William (1 like)

Amazing use of musics, voice performance and texts, really makes the storyboards come to life!

Marcus

Ahh, William, thank you for your feedback. Agree with you completely, check out Fiverr.com in the future for your voice talent needs – lots & lots of great people there. The music I did myself so glad to hear it connected with you.

James (1 like)

I was great to see the almost final version. Keep going. I feel you have a lot going for you.

Marcus

Thanks yo. I'm looking forward to seeing how your film ended up, gonna check that now. This is episode one in a series of stories called QUARANTEENZ that is focused on how we deal with the isolation of our modern world. Sign up for my email list here mortuaryentertainment.com if you want to hear more in the future.

Marijke (1 like)

I love your story very much. Great how it has evolved. You've done a lot of drawing! The ending is lovely with the kintsugi (a great reminder not to feel broken)
The bits in the prison with the guards are well done too.
Suggestions: the flash back could have a more organic beginning and ending. The social worker gets a lot of screen time but I'm not sure why. She is very self obsessed, yes. But maybe if she talks less, it would make her seem less interested in him too.
Hope your health is better and good luck with the work you still want to do!

Marcus (1 like)

Thanks so much, Marijke! Glad you came back to see how it has evolved. It has been hard to get this much done – I have another two hundred drawings listed in my "minimal" script for this episode haha! It was actually supposed to be nine minutes or so, which is partly why Judy feel like she's taking up so much screentime. The other characters were going to get a lot more lines – the cat, the guard, the lawyer – to all develop them & how their interaction with the prisoner adds to his characterization of isolation & dehumanization.

With Judy specifically I really wanted to try to show how isolated the prisoner will feel now that he is free, how he feels he won't find the kind of connection he had with his kind with the kind of people in the regular world he'll meet in now that he's free. This is also episode one in a series of stories I am working on called QUARANTEENZ that revolve around different feelings of isolation in our modern world. The next episode will shift from the prisoner & Hope to follow Judy. I almost included a title card expressing something about this but was already super late delivering this. Anyway I agree with you it's not quite working as is, but I really wanted that moment where she's on the other side of the door thinking about reporting him even though he's done nothing wrong – asking why someone isn't wearing shoes is more normal than someone not wearing shoes!

I agree 100% with you about the flashback. I struggled with this a lot actually & it ended up feeling really rushed here & kind of ruins the emotional connection in my opinion. That's big on my list of things to improve this week.

Feel free to sign up for my email list here if you want to get updates from me in the future mortuaryentertainment.com

Kwong Yue (1 like)

I really like the style. It's very different and reminds me of things like Aeon Flux and Sin City.

Marcus

You get me. You reallyyy get me. You should see my real drawings lmao. You ever see The Maxx that was on MTV's Liquid Television? It was on around the same time as Aeon Flux. If not you should definitely check it out – not sure where you can buy it but lmk & I can find you a stream of it. Anyway in The Maxx the main character (Maxx) is a homeless man dressed as a superhero with delusions & he has a weird codependent relationship with his freelance social worker Julie Winters (who Judy Summers in my film is an allusion to). The Maxx was one of the comics that helped start Image Comics if you're familiar. Highly recommend if you're into that kinda stuff. Thanks again for watching.

Cynthia (1 like)

Absolutely floored by your film. Tonally it was so gritty and grime, juxtaposed by the theme of hope and resilience of humanity. Your voice was really immersive and suit it so well. I like how you took the format of the story spine and weaved it into something different. It was very impactful and meaningful

Marcus

Ahhh thanks so much Cynthia. I feel like you really get what I was trying to say based on your comments & that means a lot. It's funny you mentioned the reuse of the storyspine – I actually wrote this story (or a version of it) around a year ago during lockdown in Berlin coinciding with my best friend's attempt on his life. It was mostly an outline at that time but I eventually developed it into a poem that I intended to turn into an illustrated piece similar to the form you see here but I still wasn't happy with it. Then I heard about this class & it seemed like the perfect opportunity to try it again. I really intended to re-record the narration but with everything else I had to do to finish something for this deadline I wasn't able to. This week I will for sure.

If you are interested, this story is actually episode one in a series called QUARANTEENZ that follows various characters dealing with feelings of isolation in our modern world. The next episode will follow Judy (which is why she is so prominent in the first episode). Feel free to sign up for my email list here if you want to get updates from me in the future mortuaryentertainment.com

Thanks again for your comments!