ILM’s former VFX master and Mad God director Phil Tippett has unveiled his next stop-motion feature titled Sentinel, which was pitched for the first time at this year’s Frontières section of the Cannes Film Festival.
Variety has been given exclusive access to the first plot details and set images from “Sentinel,” which shares a visual fidelity with “Mad God.” However, in terms of production, things will be very different this time around.
“Mad God” was a project that Tippett worked on off and on for thirty years. A similar timetable isn’t realistic for “Sentinel,” as the director would be over 100 at the film’s premiere. So, Tippett and producer Colin Geddes (Ultra 8 Pictures) say they’re pursuing a more conventional development and production plan with their new project, including a clearer narrative focus. Tippett has already begun filming bits of the film, and his team will be sharing a concept video with potential partners in Cannes.
Where “Mad God” started as a way for Tippett to ruminate on dreams and the roots of storytelling, “Sentinel” is being developed to “make something that has the whole history of VFX in it, from stop-motion to digital and now AI,” Tippett explained. “There is some AI stuff we’ve done in a little piece during development, which is great because that’s just a bigger palette for me. I can mix and match all these techniques.”
When he started “Mad God,” Tippett thought he maybe had enough material for a solid short film, but things snowballed, and the result was a lengthy production that ended with an 83-minute feature. To prevent a similar situation this time, Tippett is working from a more conventional screenplay with “Sentinel.”
“It’s going to start off a lot more traditionally,” he said. “It’s much more like a traditional war film at the beginning, and the audience will immediately recognize, “Oh, it’s like a World War One film.’”
Fans of Tippett’s more experimental work need not fear that the director is becoming a conformist, however, as “Sentinel” will quickly veer away from any easily recognizable plot path. He says the film’s main narrative expands wildly in the moments before a soldier’s death.
The idea was inspired by two pieces of media that Tippett recalled seeing for the first time during his school years: William Golding’s novel “Pincher Martin” and the “Twilight Zone” episode “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” based on a short story of the same name by Civil War veteran Ambrose Bierce.
“In both stories, you realize that the characters have already died, but in the millisecond just before they close consciousness, an alternate universe of hope explodes from the innate human need to survive. Those are the ideas I’m orbiting,” said the director.
As for the current state of development of “Sentinel,” Tippett says he’s “working on the script every single day. It will never be completely done. I’ll still be writing while I’m making the thing, but it’s in a very good place right now. Like a lot of artists, I don’t want to show it off because I don’t think it’s finished, but there comes a time when you need to have it taken out of your hands in order to move ahead.”
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