Movies, PK Colinet and I have a history.
At 12, PK directed me in our school theater play. Even then, I remember it clear as day, while we were all running around the community center ecstatic we got to skip gym class, he was there to do a job. A tween, but driven and with a vision. We then lost touch for a few years until our love for anything creative brought us back together as 16-years olds, when he cast me in one of his short movies.
We were determined kids with a plan. He was going to grow up to be a director, and I was to become an actor.
Instead, life provided us with opportunities and we welcomed them. I became an artist and he a comicbook writer. A pretty damn good one at that. I should know, I was lucky enough to put his wonderful characters into pictures for years.
But I don’t think cinema ever left him. It was this dormant passion that was just waiting for the right time to take a front seat again and that day was back in 2021 when he told me “I don’t know how to do this as a 34-year old writer, but I need to go back to directing”.
How do you do this, then?
1- you partner up with the best, hottest horror comic writer you know: James Tynion IV. Well, first you email him with the thought, you anxiously wait for an answer and when he does less than an hour later not only with a big yes but also with a fully fleshed idea, you say Holy Shit this is happening.
2- you receive the most brilliant script, develop the tone….. imbue it with your love for Korean cinema and anything independent, you develop your vision for it and don’t stop until you feel you have something truly worthy of a viewer’s time.
3- you draw the full storyboards.
4- you surround yourself with the best creators to help bring this project to life: Tonci Zonjic, Martin Simmonds, Emma Price, Francesco Francavilla, Rafael Albuquerque, Jim Mahfood, Cliff Chiang…
5- you put together a huge set of perks that will make your fans go nuts with enthusiasm: posters, prints, a movie artbook, a prose story with spot illustrations, original art, the full storyboards, creator lives…
6- you launch your horror short movie, ROOM SERVICE on Kickstarter and keep your fingers crossed.
WHAT YOU WILL GET
Because PK and I are Kickstarter nuts (we’ve got four campaigns under our belt, each bigger than the previous one and with raving reviews for all of them), we wanted to develop a set of physical perks that you guys and gals would go crazy over, including:
… a movie artbook: a superb 80-page, 6.8-in by 10.4-in hardcover edition, designed by Emma Price, that will include James' script, movie treatment, details on production, Tonči Zonjić's mask design for the Caretaker, interviews, a making-of, and the full short movie storyboarded, by me.
…the film poster by Martin Simmonds and an exclusive one by me.
…a print set, including one by me.
…and I will also draw spot illustrations for a prose story written by James!
WHAT IS ROOM SERVICE ABOUT?
ROOM SERVICE opens the door into a hidden world that caters exclusively to the ultra-rich, and provides them experiences that only their money can buy. It is the story of a man, down on his luck, who agrees to participate in a grisly transaction in that world, and what happens to him when he decides he wants to back out.
It’s one of James’ brutal ideas, and that’s saying something. Like many of his horror projects, a lot of the horror centers around a terrifying figure with a haunting iconic look. We call this character “The Caretaker” and recruited the phenomenal Tonci Zonjic to bring his design to life.
James, PK and I are all extremely excited to launch into this new adventure. It’s extraordinarily ambitious and we hope you’ll feel like joining us!
Thank you to Elsa, PK, and James for hosting this! The YouTube live-stream was a fun peek at the behind-the-scenes process of a Kickstarter campaign and its influences.
I don't know where else to post this, so I'm just going to drop this here. When are the miniprints being sent to the early subscribers? I paid $60 - a lot of money to me - nine months ago to support this endeavor, but to be completely honest, I feel a bit let down. In July, I was told it would be out in August. Now it's almost November and I still don't have it. I apologize in advance if it somehow missed me in the mail. but I'm still waiting and it's kind of soured me on the whole substack process.