Feb 7, 2024

Indie CG Artist Julian Grunder Reveals Early Look at Debut Work "Boys Go To Jupiter" - Exclusive

Pittsburgh-based indie superstar Julian Grunder's self-produced debut, Boys Go to Jupiter, can now be seen for the exclusive first time.

Grander has helmed projects for Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, HBO Max, and Disney, created the cult video game ART SQOOL, contributed CG art to The New York Times and The New Yorker He has contributed work to the film "Jeopardy," sung the song "Jeopardy" by pronouncing the alphabet backwards, and made a very lasting impression. Grander also worked with fellow indie filmmaker Jeron Braxton on a fun experimental short film, "Plant Room." [Boys Go to Jupiter] is animated entirely in Blender and is billed as a surrealistic coming-of-age animation in the signature style and color palette that launched Grander's career. In addition to directing, Grander is self-financing the film, which will be executive produced by Paisin Yang Lazo.

The film unfolds in gloomy Florida the day after Christmas. There, Billy 5000, an aimless teenager who is content to waste his potential and spend his days working as a delivery driver, is pulled away from his easy life by fate. When Billy is entrusted with the care of a mysterious egg from another world, he loses control of the situation and is forced to make critical decisions about life, love, and money.

"Boys Go to Jupiter" was made primarily by Granda and Lazo; in an interview with Cartoon Brew, Granda explained: [We each did the work of 100 people. It was a lot of work, but it feels really good to make a film independently. We didn't have to have meetings about everything, and we were able to own all the creative decisions.

The two of us did most of the heavy lifting on the film, but we had some important help along the way. Nate Deibert, a fellow Pittsburgh-based animator, worked on the film for several months as a character animator, and Granda convinced his idol, Jordan Spear, to provide a few seconds of animation.

We asked him how he had to adapt his workflow to accommodate such an ambitious project for Grander's feature debut.

I eventually incorporated organization and time management. With illustration or short animation, you can push through without planning, but if you do that with a feature film, obviously everything falls apart. I had 500 notes on my to-do list for the final stages of revision, but I worked on 20 a day for a month. That may be the secret to a successful big project. You have to have a big vision and then break it down into small, easily digestible pieces.

He was forced to adopt some new habits for the film's production, but says other familiar work practices endured:

I still don't really like storyboarding, I prefer to work from a script. Some scenes have stick-on boards, but for the most part I animated the entire scene with wide shots, then moved the camera around in Blender to select close-ups and insert shots. [It was almost like shooting a live action movie or a 3-camera sitcom. It kept things moving. Of course, I also want to emphasize that Blender is a great program with a really vibrant community. Every time I ran into a technical problem, I could go to Youtube and find someone who had already solved it. Without those resources, I don't know if this film would have been made.

Grunder says that working on a project of this magnitude has been quite relaxing once he found his groove. According to him, the most stressful part was filling out the film's voice-over cast.

Eventually, Grunder got the actors he wanted. The film features Jack Corbett, Elsie Fisher, Tavi Gevinson, Julio Torres, Sarah Sherman, Joe Pera, Grace Kuhlenschmidt, Mya Follick, Chris Fleming, Cole Escola, River L. Ramirez, Eva Victor, Max Whittart, and a talented voice cast of comedic and musical talent.

Work on "Boys Go to Jupiter" is 95% complete. This bittersweet fact has probably subconsciously injected a degree of procrastination into Grander's daily routine:

I really loved the film, so it was surprisingly emotional to let it go. I'm in the process of opening things up, tweaking, making small changes that won't make the film better or worse. Yesterday I spent three hours experimenting with the color of the car in the background of one of the shots.

Fans of bold, original, creator-driven films should keep an eye out for this one when Grander finishes the film. We can't wait either.