OK, I
admit it: I'm a huge fan.
I'm a huge, salivating, impatient fan, like so many others anxiously
awaiting the arrival of Rustboy. Richly detailed, this
beautifully designed and to all appearances utterly charming film is
not the product of some Hollywood assembly line. Shrouded in mystery
and yet not completely hidden behind a Veil of Secrecy, it is being
developed in plain sight right there on the internet... by one man.
Brian Taylor toils away on Rustboy night after night from his
home in Scotland. This spare-time auteur caught the winds of public
admiration through the internet and stands poised to bring his sleeping
robot creation to life; to walk, perchance to hurtle, into pop culture.
His internet venture even landed him an investor, which has in turn
granted him the ability to work on Rustboy full time. Among internet
art enthusiasts and would-be film directors, his story is the stuff
of legend.
But it's not the film that brings Rustboy to the pages of AnimWatch
today. Brian Taylor, the man who turned conventional wisdom on its ear
by developing a movie in his spare time, alone, with unglamourous off-the-shelf
rendering software, is doing it again. He's releasing a Rustboy
coffee table book before the movie is even finished.
OK, I figured, there has got to be a story there.
Brian was kind enough to share a sneak peek at the book recently and
chat with me about it.
Ogden:
I'm glad you showed me the book. Secretly, I had been harbouring something
akin to jealousy on behalf of the Rustboy movie regarding this
book of yours, as I feel it steals precious time away from the film.
Taylor: I'm well aware of this Og. You and many other people.
But now you've seen it, hopefully you have another perspective.
Ogden: Yeah, I can see where you're coming from now. Frankly,
the book isn't what I thought it would be. I thought it was strictly
a "Making Of..." for an unfinished movie, which didn't make
any sense to me. Now that I've seen what else is in it, it makes more
sense.
Jim Coudal mentions in his introduction to the book that the model of
how one makes a movie has been upended, and in this upended universe,
the book can certainly arrive before the movie. I agree, if it's the
right book, and the book's creator has his heart in the right place.
Taylor: Exactly. It's more of an 'art of' than a 'making of',
really. The book is every bit as important as the film for me.
Some things can only be explained in a book, and that's the primary
reason I am writing it. It would sound ridiculous if I said some of
this stuff on the Rustboy website or forum.
Ogden: Tell me a little bit about why you decided to take on
this book yourself.
Taylor: I was approached by two publishers, but when I read the
terms, and found out how little I would get out of it, I thought, I'm
making a film on my own, how hard could it be to publish a book?
So here I am, not only producing all the content, writing, and designing
the book, but also dealing with printers, binders, the ISBN agency,
storage, packing and shipping, online shopping, sourcing 3D glasses,
and all the rest.
But it's all good fun, running my little empire from my bedroom, in
an ordinary house, in an ordinary street in Scotland. He he.
Ogden: Well, it has a unique feel -- sort of halfway between
an illustrated storybook and a high-design magazine layout. (And ya
gotta love those 3D glasses...heh heh).
Taylor: Thanks, I didn't want the design to look like your typical
'making of' book. In fact, there is a lot of behind-the-scenes material
in the book, but the text of the book is more an account of the whole
journey so far. So, the book is about more than just the film, and the
design reflects that.
