MAD GOD a fully practical stop-motion film set in a Miltonesque world of monsters, mad scientists, and war pigs from the mind of original Star Wars VFX artist Phil Tippett.
Tippett is the longtime head of Industrial Light & Magic and owner of Tippett Studios who’s been responsible for numerous iconic creations. The AT-ATs and Tauntauns in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, the bugs of Klendathu in Starship Troopers, ED-209 in RoboCop among many others. Recently the visual effects and animation wizard was brought back to work on The Mandalorian seasons 2 and 3.
In 1987, Phil Tippett embarked upon an ambitious personal project, fabricating and animating a darkly surreal world in which the creatures and nightmares of his imagination could roam free. Phil produced dozens of environments and hundreds of puppets for the project, filling notebook after notebook with thousands of detailed sketches and storyboards.
Decades after the success of Tippett Studio forced production into stasis, a group of animators at Tippett Studio came upon boxes of shelved props and puppets. After viewing the original footage, they convinced Phil to resurrect the project. The small group began volunteering their weekends to MAD GOD, and before long it had snowballed into a crew of more than 60 artists. A wildly successful KickStarter campaign provided funding for materials and equipment.
Each piece of MAD GOD is hand crafted, independent and created from the heart. Sometimes that heart is bursting with love for the craft, while other times it’s macabre, punctured, and bleeding. MAD GOD is a mature film crafted from techniques & technologies that span the history of cinema and the career of a true animation mastermind.
Mad God follows an assassin who descends into an otherworldy hellscape filled many strange and horrific creatures which was made almost entirely via stop-motion animation. Tippett initially came up with the idea during some quiet time in his busy schedule but only created a few scenes before having to put all his focus into pioneering the blend of stop-motion and CGI effects in Jurassic Park (which still hold up to this day). All that changed when some of Tippett’s key artists and collaborators caught wind of the project 20 years later and encouraged him to continue it. With the help of a crowdfund campaign and countless volunteer hours, the final product is finally seeing the light of day.
The project is a true labor of love and was completed during the Covid pandemic. Some volunteers were professionals who spent their weeks creating effects for Marvel and Lucasfilm and their weekends helping Tippett, others were students from various San Francisco art schools. All volunteered for free in exchange for lessons in the craft from a master animator. Mad God will premiere on Shudder June 16.