I’ve started work on a new PARADIGM SHIFT animated short!
Hey, everyone! It’s been pretty quiet on the PARADIGM SHIFT front since Restless Sleep came out last year. If you caught my last note, you’ll know it’s because I was hired to create a couple of animated pieces for the Storiaverse App. But that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten about Kate & Mike. Oh, no.
Over the last year, I’ve been laying the groundwork for a new, more ambitious project: PARADIGM SHIFT – Chinatown, which will bring the pivotal scene where Kate’s werewolf powers manifest to life in full-color animated glory!
And this month I crossed a major milestone—finishing the teaser trailer! Here’s a sneak peek:
Bigger is better!
PARADIGM SHIFT—Chinatown will by far the biggest, most complex animated project I’ve taken on to date. It will have it all—kung fu fights, chase scenes, a beautiful Chicago setting, a brand new soundtrack, and best of all—a full voice cast!
However, while I tackled Restless Sleep almost entirely on my own (with the exception of sound effects and a bit of assistance from some helpful interns), this time I’m assembling an actual team to help make this project a reality. Joining me will be:
Sound Designer Alexander Danner, who helped me finish Restless Sleep
A casting director who will find and direct our voice talent.
A production assistant and social media manager to help me stay organized and in better communication during the project.
Plus a couple of talented young freelancers who are helping me build 3D characters and sets in Blender, and help with compositing and finishing the animation.
We’ll be launching a Kickstarter to help fund the project later this fall. Stay tuned for details in the coming weeks as we rev things up. I can’t wait to share it all with you!
When I first started Paradigm Shift waaaay back in 1998 (!!), I wanted to see it animated from the very start. Because of this, I made some deliberate choices about storytelling. First, if you couldn’t see it or hear it, I wouldn’t put it on the page. I deliberately thought of the panels a little like storyboards for a movie. In fact, when I’m writing scripts, the story plays out in my mind’s eye a bit like movie. It’s like tuning into my own private TV channel (or streaming service, heh) in my mind. So, in many ways, animation is actually a little closer to what I see in my head than comics.
Anyway, I want to share with you some of the key shots and scenes where I directly used the comic as storyboards in RESTLESS SLEEP. It all started with this scene for Part Two: Agitation:
Here’s how it translated to animation:
Next, we have the werewolf transformation itself. In the case of the original scene, it starts while she’s having a nightmare about waking up in a hospital, and then the scene shifts back to her bedroom. For the sake of simplicity, I just kept the setting the same in the animated version, but used some of the same basic shots for the film as a starting point.
Now, from here we veer off into brand new territory. I added a new of new shots on the fly to complete the rest of the transformation. Here’s how Kate’s full werewolf transformation looks in the film:
However, this scene ends with a shot taken from the last panel from this page in Part Three: Emergence:
Another scene I wanted to animate from the very start was the X-Files style opening scene where James Wilson meets his untimely demise. Of course, I altered the ending to have it be Kate’s beast instead of Major Bryant’s lion form. Again for simplicity’s sake.
And here’s how it appears in the film:
Next, there’s a few shots from Kate’s nightmare at the end of Part One: Equilibrium. Again, I’ve cut out the other elements of the scene, and loop back to theme of her attacking Beast form in her dreams to end the sequence.
And here’s how the nightmare turned out in the film:
The final scene begins with an almost a shot-for-shot interpretation of the final page of Part One: Equilibrium. However, I made one major change where I gave Kate a smartphone, so her conversation with Mike could happen via text. At the time, I had no voice actors lined up, so I used the texting conceit to convey the only dialogue in the film.
Here’s how it plays out in animated form:
I almost used the second part of this scene as the beginning. There’s just a couple of odds and ends shots that I pulled directly from the comic in these. First, we have Kate examining herself in the mirror:
Conversely, the opening scene where they find the body was actually the last scene I animate, since it was easily the most complicated. Originally, I was going to end the film with her finding the body and passing out. Here’s a couple of shots in the opening scene taken from the opening of Part Two: Agitation:
I had the idea for this animated werewolf transformation sequence way back while I was still working on PS Part Two: Agitation. I’d been dreaming about making an animated trailer for the series, and I knew this would be the thing that would cap it off. However, I had no practical way to try to do it, but it did serve as the inspiration for the cover for Part Three: Emergence. Later on, I also made a hand-painted version that ended up being the cover to the Volume 1 collection.
Why did I call the new filmRestless Sleep? As I’ve mentioned, I’ve wanted to animate Paradigm Shift for a very long time. A lot of this hinged around Kate’s fateful transformation into a werewolf.
The title of the new film—Restless Sleep—actually comes from a drawing in my sketchbook that I did way back in 2002. I imagined her tossing and turning in her sleep in the lead-up to transforming for the first time. You can see it right there in the upper left hand corner.
However, with the completion of Equilibrium and the launch of ModernTales.com, I got wrapped up with working on continuing the story instead of focusing on this side project. And so “Restless Sleep” got put in the drawer, and only existed as a series of pages in my sketchbook for 20 years.
Early transformation sketches from 2001 – Page 01
Early transformation sketches from 2001 – Page 02
Early transformation sketches from 2001 – Page 03
So, when I started playing with 3D last year, knowing that I wanted to animate Kate’s metamorphosis, this story immediately sprang to mind. The project started with a smaller scope—just animate the transformation and her going out the window into the night. And set it all to some music. But obviously I got a bit more ambitious, and it turned into the final film you see today!
Based on the cult werewolf detective comic seriesPARADIGM SHIFT, classic werewolf tale meets paranormal mystery in this new animated short!
Detective Kate McAllister is in for a rough night. While investigating a strange murder, she discovers she has a connection to the killer that is stronger than she could possibly imagine!
PARADIGM SHIFT—Restless Sleep is my first animated film. It as was created in Blender with characters rigged using DAZ Studio’s Genesis 8 platform. Composited in Adobe After Effects and edited in Adobe Premiere. I also composed and performed the music using Apple’s Logic Pro. The whole project took me just over a year to complete.
