Renowned U.S. effects designer and director Phil Tippett has shared, online, the teaser trailer for Mad God, a stop-motion film that will be presented at the Locarno Film Festival in August.
Mad God is an experimental animated film set in a world populated by monsters, mad scientists and war pigs. A corroded diving bell descends in the midst of a ruined city, and the Assassin inside begins to explore a maze of bizarre landscapes inhabited by wacky characters.
The film is a mix of several innovative animation techniques, and it took Phil Tippett 30 years to complete. The effects artist began working on it while he was busy on the visual effects of RoboCop 2 but after Jurassic Park, he shelved the project, convinced that special effects and stop-motion would fall into disuse. Recently, however, after seeing the scenes he had shot, some of his colleagues convinced him to finish the film. The lockdown due to the pandemic gave him the time he needed to complete the project.
Phil Tippett is the founder of Tippett Studio (a visual effects company specializing in CGI) and has worked on such major franchises as Star Wars, Indiana Jones and RoboCop. Winner of two Academy Awards (the "Special Achievement Award for Visual Effects" for Return of the Jedi and the "Oscar for best special effects" for Jurassic Park), Tippett also appears on the crew of several horror films such as Piraña (1978), Helen's House (1987), Tremors 2: Aftershocks (1996) e Haunting - Presences (1999).
Trailer:
Backstage video from 9 years ago:
The poster: