Picture Thinking is a creative consultancy motivated to understand, educate and change.
We bring awareness, clear communication and legacy to any story, big or small.
Feature Film / A Liar's Autobiography
Animation Producer / Animation Production
A LIAR'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY - THE UNTRUE STORY OF MONTY PYTHONS GRAHAM CHAPMAN is an animated 3D stereoscopic feature film based on the memoir of the late Monty Python member, Graham Chapman, who died in 1989 at the age of 48. Not a documentary, not a Monty Python film, 'A Liar's Autobiography' is Chapman's own take on his bizarre life and his search for self-knowledge. Incredible, yes. Surreal, certainly. True, who knows?
Graham Chapman, best remembered as 'the dead one from Monty Python' was born, he went to Cambridge and met John Cleese, he smoked a pipe, he became a doctor, he became a Python, he decided he was gay (well, 70/30, according to a survey he did on himself), he got drunk a lot, he stopped being drunk, he made some films, he had some sex (actually, a lot), and moved to Los Angeles. Finally, he was whisked up into space by aliens (although that might have been in a film).
Starring; Graham Chapman (from the grave), John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Cameron Diaz, Stephen Fry, Tom Hollander and Carol Cleveland
"The Best 3D film i've been in since I died"
Graham Chapman
Our brief was to produce the animation for the hugely ambitious stereoscopic feature film. Yep we were on it for 3 years and did not see much of the light of day but we sure did meet some wonderful friends. It sure was an educational journey.
Our Solution began by working closely with the films directors Bill Jones, Ben Timlett and Jeff Simpson on digesting the original book and turning it into a script.
We split the film up into sections and our next goal was to pair script with style and find the right talent that technically could deliver but importantly had the right sense of humour. Running workshops, team building days and collaborating with absolutely everyone we could find in the stereoscopic world.
Our Outcome was a film incorporating 17 different styles of animation. Its distribution began with a World Premier at the TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, European Premier BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL and continued its way around the world in festivals and theatrical releases all the way to Blueray.
Beyond just the film we were involved in many other aspects of the project in creating relationships with brands like Adobe and NVIDEA and running competitions such as 'Animate Chapman' to universities and audiences
to build a global audience for the film. Curating exhibitions at the BFI showcasing the animation talent and also the memorabilia of Graham Chapman. Yes we had the original crest from King Arthur’s costume and ‘The Messiah’s Shoe’ from Life of Brian in our studio the whole time. What a trip.
Press
We ran a stereoscopic training program — Project Chapman 3D
To make things a little harder for this ambitious project we were to bring each of the 17 different animation styles to life in stereoscopic 3D. Each using a different workflow and development process. Traditional 2D techniques would need to be re-thought and adding the extra information of a depth pass looking at parallax convergence. None of the animators had ever worked in stereoscopic before so we built a training program and education bible for each collaborative studio. Launched a website to make our research public and created Online Tutorials.
Making Of Film
Behind The Scenes
Producers : Biill and Ben Productions
Directors : Bill Jones, Ben Timlett, Jeff Simpson
Writers : Graham Chapman (Yes the deceased Monty Python member)
Animation Producer : Justin Weyers
Line Producer : Margarita Doyle
Executive Producer : Mark Sandell, Meyer Shwarzstein, Hanspeter Jaberg
Animation Production : Picture Thinking*
Animation : A for Animation / ArthurCox / Beakus / Cake / Made Visual Studio / Moth Collective / Mr & Mrs Smith / Not To Scale / Peepshow / Sherbet / Steven Lall / Superfad / Tundra / Treat Studios / Trunk Animation /
Editing : Bill Jones / Julian
Sound Design : Andre Jackeman
Composers : Jonc Greswell, Chris Taylor
Distribution : EPIX, Trinity
* Previously known as Made Visual Studio