Monster Island
Created, Written, and Directed by Harry Chaskin, Dan Lippert & Justin Michael
Godzilla vs. King Kong
Director: Ishirô Honda
Cinematography: Hajime Koizumi
Today on Movies In Color, I’d like to share a stop-motion short film made by extremely talented folks. Monster Island came out today and you can watch it here!
Take a trip to MONSTER ISLAND! Zog and Java are two best friends looking to throw the ultimate BBQ party. They also happen to be giant monsters imprisoned on an island. 99.9% stop-motion animation, 0.1% tiny live-action people!
The color in the short is stunning and shows a clear attention to detail as well as clear inspiration from films like Godzilla vs. King Kong. I made a few palettes to showcase their fantastic use of color and the clear parallel between the short and Toho monster films above.
Here is a bit of insight into the use of color in Monster Island from creator/writer/director Justin Michael.
“When we started pre-production on Monster Island, we always knew that color was going to be an important component for the piece to succeed. Harry and I are both enormous fans of old-school Toho monster movies, not to mention stuff of the Ray Harryhausen stop-motion variety. I grew up watching many of Godzilla’s decidedly goofier outings, and my absolute favorites were some of the more technicolor-looking iterations like Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla and Terror of Mechagodzilla, not to mention the wonderful and goofy King Kong Escapes!
We ended up pushing things a little further than those Toho films and really saturated the hell out of things, both in paint and fur choices during construction and fabrication, and in the post-production color sessions with our colorist Loren White. We wanted the island to feel vibrant and inviting, like a 1960s James Bond villain’s lair.”
Go watch this short! It’s great!