The screen is calm, cold and blue as a little robot stares out a shielded window to a planet far below. In another setting, alarms blare in red alert as a large, evil-looking insectoid robot lurches down the hallway in pursuit of the diminutive android. These scenes are from director Christopher Mullins' independent animated film BLUE, and sum up the dual themes of isolation and danger the director sought to bring to the the screen. BLUE's dark, moody atmosphere and more mature themes stand as a marked contrast to the bright, happy, kid-centric aesthetic of most popular CG animation these days.

It's September, 2003, and Mullins is wrapping up final production on his film. Soon, it will be time to unveil it. It's an intense time for him, as you can imagine: "I'm currently fixing mistakes, adding effects, waiting for and critiquing music and getting renders from Spain. My head constantly hurts and I'm not even sure if I can stand up anymore, but the show must go on eh?"

That's a portrait of Post-production that is at the same time disturbing and humourous, but ultimately accurate, as any animator can attest. Yet, in the midst of his hectic end-of-project schedule, Mullins found a few spare moments to share a few words with us about his film.

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Ogden: How did you come up with the idea for BLUE?

Mullins: Unfortunately, there's no big story behind it. Blue, the character, came to me during a moment of inspiration and the rest just evolved from there. There was something about the style and the colors and the mood that kept refueling my desire to create.

Eventually after creating a rough story in my head, I decided to take it a step further and develop concepts and a script, which of course led to storyboards and so on. I was originally intending to use Blue as a 5 - 8 minute demo reel that would help me get a job and transition from the game industry to the film industry but, as you can see, things got fairly out of hand. However, I couldn't be happier with my decisions.

Ogden: How did you approach the story writing? Did you start with one central idea and work out from there, or did you have a good idea of the beginning, middle and end right from the start?

Mullins: After a few weeks of running various short scenes through my head, I decided to start developing them further on paper while trying to place them within the skeleton of a basic story. It was an extremely volatile process. Everything was constantly changing all the time which made it very hard to lock anything down.

Establishing the framework of the story was probably the most hectic process. After that, it was just a matter of adding or removing details and basic refining.

Ogden: Did you have any help ironing out the story?

Mullins: Yes, I have a few family members who are experienced writers and occasionally I would bounce ideas off of them or ask them to help me fill in gaps and nitpick over scenes. I had to force myself to keep an open mind at first, but I quickly learned that all writers, no matter who they are, should always seek out other opinions on their work in order to develop the best possible result. They would be cheating themselves if they didn't.

Ogden: Did you use storyboards and/or animatics, and if so, to what degree?

Mullins: I boarded every sequence before any official production began and I even treated that in much the same way as I did the writing phase. Once the storyboards were completed, I laid them all out in order and presented them to a few people in order to get feedback. Any of the suggested changes that I agreed with, I made, and then locked it down and began production.

If the film had included dialogue I would have used an animatic, but I just didn't feel that it was necessary for "Blue." However, I will most likely use one for the next film (dialogue or not) just because it is probably a film-maker's most valuable reference.

Ogden: Did your initial story ideas change much during the storyboard phase?

Mullins: No, in fact, they changed afterwards.

Ogden: What inspired your design of the character?

Mullins: I'm not really sure. As I said before, the ideas just came to me. I didn't set out to create a robot, but instead, just let my imagination do the work on its own as I struggled to capture it all on paper, and a robot is what came out. I'm pretty sure that a lot of the environment and props were heavily influenced by the styles in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Artistically, that film was very inspiring to both Aaron and me. As for the main character, I think it's just a conglomerate of different pieces and features of hundreds of little characters that I've seen or envisioned over time. Some have said to me that he has a bit of an "Anime look" to him - which I suppose I see.

Ogden: What made you decide to set the story in space?

Mullins: Space is always a winning setting for a sci-fi story, but beyond that, I really wanted to capture the feeling of loneliness and space is probably the ultimate setting for such a mood.

Ogden: What do you hope people take away from the story with them when they are done watching BLUE?

Mullins: I would like to help bring animation to a different level. "Blue" has a story-line and a feel that isn't exactly cranked out of the same machine that those big-budget animated films come from. I would like to experiment with bringing some different emotions to the screen other than the usual brightly colored, happy, bouncy feeling that animations have been showcasing for years. I hope after watching "Blue," people will realize that animation can conjure up just as many emotions, including all the gray areas in between, as any live-action film. I hope they see that the characters are just as alive and important as any actor and that people other than kids and animation enthusiasts can be equally concerned about what happens to them in the story.

Ogden: How long did you work on BLUE from start to finish, and how much of that was full time?

Mullins: I began concept sketches in January of 2001 and am closing now in September, 2003. I still had a job from January to May of 2001, but after that, "Blue" became a full time job.

Ogden: What made you decide to use "The Render Factory?"

Mullins: They approached me after CG-Channel did a cover story on "Blue" and offered to let me use their render farm during off hours in exchange for the right to use "Blue" in Render Factory advertisements. They showed a great liking and appreciation for "Blue," and since I wasn't funded from an outside source, they wanted to do what they could to help out. It's a nice exchange and I'm very lucky and thankful to have them.

Ogden: How has it been working with them?

Mullins: Excellent! Even though my renders are done during "off hours", they are always finished within a day or so and are ready for downloading. We've set up a nice, easy system and communicate by either email or an occasional phone conversation. If it weren't for them, this film would never be finished rendering.

Ogden: You were working remotely with your friends Aaron Webster and James Anderson, right? Was it a pretty smooth process?

Mullins: Yes, it has gone extremely well; Aaron did structural modeling and he designed the larger "evil" robot so his job has been finished for a long time now. James on the other hand, took over during the second half of production, and has been hard at work trying to smooth out all the kinks in the sound and music.

They both flew into the U.S. years ago to work on a game title with a company that I was part of for awhile, and that's how we got to know each other. So it's not a new relationship.

However, during the whole time we've been working on "Blue" I have only seen Aaron twice and talked on the phone a few times and I haven't once seen James nor had a phone conversation. This entire collaboration was handled through Instant Messaging and E-Mail which, to the rest of the computer artists and animators out there, is probably fairly normal, but thinking about it a little more now, this really is an interesting time. I have to admit, it's very hard to describe what kind of music or sound you want through text only. James and I were talking just the other day about how nice it would be if we could just get in the same room so we could wave our arms around frantically while we describe our ideas.

You wouldn't believe how much being able to do that would have helped.