Director William Campbell’s short film The Nature Between Us, which blends animation and live action, is set to premiere at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. It will screen with Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, the feature directorial debut of John Krasinski, one of the stars of the hit NBC comedy The Office.
Co-produced by TEAM G and Superfad, The Nature Between Us revolves around an old VHS camera that reveals a bonkers, 1980s back-alley gang struggling for a sense of identity. The group stumbles upon a tiny secret world, brought to the screen with stop-motion animation.
Campbell says his approach to the film was inspired by the idea that, in many cases, animation can feel very sincere and live-action can feel completely synthetic.
‘I wondered what would happen if these two worlds met each other,’ Campbell explains. ‘What would it feel like to see this miniature animation that was passionate and completely focused? Would the live-action seem animated? Would the animation seem more real? Could the mixed media become one thing?’
Campbell began with drawings of the animated characters and developed the rest of the film around them. Wanting to juxtapose the invented creatures with the most synthetic live action possible, he drew from ’80s cinema for the overarching aesthetic. The project was completed with the support of TEAM G, a production collective of which Campbell is a member, and Superfad, the hybrid production company where he is a director. TEAM G, which enjoyed success at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival with the short film The Execution of Solomon Harris (directed by Ed Yonaitis and Wyatt Garfield), provided the core production group, with Superfad participating in funding, animation and visual effects. For more information on the film, see the official website at www.Thenaturebetweenus.com.
