Children of Stone (Part 2 of 2)

Giant rock monsters from ancient times awaken in the present and find they must battle to determine the fate of human kind...

See concept art and other behind-the-scenes material on my website:
http://dontmesswithdinosaurs.com/?page_id=383

This was my film project for my senior year of college (I majored in film production and minored in animation, Loyola Marymount University 2007)

Credits (informal):
I (Brian Engh) wrote, designed, directed edited and did most (like, at least 80%) of the post production effects and animation.

Will Hyler
( http://www.youtube.com/user/willhundredpercent )
and
Katie Bode
( http://www.youtube.com/user/somethingbode )
were always there during production doing everything imaginable. From painting everything grey (Katie) to building the stage we shot the rock monsters on (Will). They handled biz.
Will then stayed on through the very extended post production to do the sound design.

David Reilly
( http://www.youtube.com/user/Inchingwheels )
supported the film throughout its entire life. He started the conversation that inspired me to conceptualize about rock monsters, he helped on the set a bunch, and he kept encouraging me throughout the gnarly post production process. Even when I could no longer see anything good in the film he would see stuff I was working on and get excited and that really helped keep me going.

A bunch of other people who helped doing all sorts of stuff on set:
Ali Beltramo (Katie Bode's right hand gal), Andrew Doman ( http://www.youtube.com/user/crotchfire ), JJ Conway, Franz Schmutzer, Alfonso Estrada, Scott Gairdner ( http://www.youtube.com/user/Zoltarkill ), Ricky Fosheim, Matt Bordenave, Zach Ramirez and Luis Silva.

Stephen Engh (my dad) built the miniature airplanes you see shooting missiles at the rock monsters. The models he built were actually able to open their bombay doors and lower their 'missile pods' (as seen in the film). That wasn't an animated effect (the shooting/exploding missiles, however, was).

Maren Engh (my mom) made the costumes for the Sage and the Boy. She also made a few cave people costumes for some scenes that I didn't end up putting in the finished movie because I screwed them up.

Donna and Ruud Vis (Andrew Doman's mom and step-dad) let us film in the awesome ravine adjacent to their nursery (where Volciathan wakes up).

The movie stars:
Lucius Bryant (Narrator/Sage)
Adrian Schemm (Boy)
and Ben Stewart (Volciathan - the rock monster who loves humans, AND he played all of the humans who hate rock monsters. Talk about dramatic range!)
Josh Goldman, Patrick Donelly, Will Hyler and Jeremy Polgar
( http://www.youtube.com/user/jpolgar1 )
all played Metamorpholith (the rock monster who hates humans)

On the post production end of things, I got some solid compositing from Alfonso Estrada, JJ Conway and Keith Henry.

Also my thanks goes out to Jessica Frederick of Mhz Networks for saving me from wasting tons of money on putting this in film festivals. She randomly saw the animated intro on Youtube and asked if they could play it on their TV channel Mhz Worldview. I said "WHOOAA YEAH!!! You can play the WHOLE MOVIE!!!"
If you don't get Mhz Worldview, and you want to, you should check out their website here:
http://www.mhznetworks.org/mhzworldview/

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• fighting
• action
• adventure
• sci
• fi
• fantasy
• science
• fiction
• mythology
• dinosaurs
• geology
• paleontology
• paleo
• cave
• paintings
• nuclear
• explosion
• mushroom
• cloud
• special
• effects
• charcoal
• animation
• traditional
• rubber
• suit
• monster
• kaiju
• godzilla
• rodan
• ghidora
• mothra
• battra
• angilas
• baragon
• gorosaurus
• toho
• destroy
• all
• monsters
• igneous
• volcanic
• basalt
• metamorphic
• fossils
• mass
• extinction
• folk
• lore
• nature
• pollution
• consumerism
• end
• of
• civilization
• environment
• sustainability
• ecology
• animism

[CommonersBeef]

ok i understand all the fighting and the after math but during the nuclear explosion was that the rock and the mountain still fighting or was that the creatures they sleyed returning?

[HistorianHimself]

@CommonersBeef

Yeah I'm sorry... that part confuses everybody... it was supposed to be the rock monsters still fighting in their 'true form' - some kind of molten/high energy inner-earth creatures. the quick glimpse of the prehistoric creature was supposed to be a flashback, motivating Volciathan (the protagonist giant) to keep fighting...

Sorry I didn't make that more clear... I made this in too much of a rush and I didn't plan everything as well as I should have. Thanks for watching anyway.

[CopyrightSux]

how did that guy btw survive the nuclear bombing?? wasnt he standing next to the giant?

[HistorianHimself]

@CopyrightSux

good question! Well, it's not clear how much time passed between his meeting with the rock monster and the rock monster's pounding of the ground/battling etc. I suppose the most plausible answer I could offer would be that the giants were battling for a little while, and during that time the man walked as far away as he could (perhaps a few miles) and found a tunnel to bunker down in when he saw the missile launching in the distance.

Anyway, thanks for watching!

[HistorianHimself]

Thank you everyone for watching both halves, I know this video is pretty long for YouTube, and clicking the second half is somewhat troublesome. Also thank you all for your supportive comments, we put a lot of work into this, and it's really encouraging to receive any positive feedback on it.

[missuscake]

It seems you truly understand that ideas and concepts don't die they are just forgotten. That's why this was so brilliant, both its execution and story reminded me of this. It's been too long since I've seen a movie like this. It reminds me of finding Goldzilla vs King Kong in an old bargain been at Walmart when I was twelve and watching it and loving it. You made an awesome movie and it reminded me of how much I enjoy monster movies.

[flamingbalsac1]

hey there, about a year ago i saw this and though it was really badass.... i used video footage from part one cut together and edited a little bit for a song i made. Nothing special i just thought it was fun to cut the movie to a song, rather than scoring the song to film cues, for once. So anyways, I say where i got the video footage but if you aren't down with what i've done let me know and i'll take it down. but check it out.

[h666y]

*_______*

[SaraESainsbury]

omgosh, will hyler helped with this?? he is so good.

[wtfomgstudios]

This came out on my birthday....and this is my favorite Short Movie ever.....

[un7ucky]

@TheRandomAssassin1 ok sound fair to me

[TheRandomAssassin1]

@un7ucky OK. I think the point is that people are evil and destroy every thing.