DISTINCTION
Negadon: The Monster From Mars
Jun Awazu
In the year 2025, the world population explodes to over 10 billion. In a search for a new place to live, mankind initiates a space exploration program entitled the Mars Terraforming Project. Step by step, mankind successfully transforms Mars into a habitable planet. But when a Japanese spaceship returning from Mars crashes on the streets of Tokyo, it unleashes a giant and vicious monster. Only Dr. Narasaki and his long-abandoned robot Miroku can save Earth and mankind.
A staggeringly realistic, noir style CG film similar to recent blockbuster hits such as Sky Captain & The World of Tomorrow, Negadon: The Monster from Mars pays homage to a wide variety of 1950's and 60's Japanese monster movies such as Godzilla, Mothra, and other classics which first brought global attention to Japan's then-emerging post-war feature film industry. Negadon: the Monster from Mars is the world's first completely computer generated monster movie!
The project Negadon: the Monster from Mars took 28 months from pre-production to postproduction. Most of the work, including writing the original story and screenplay, was composed and edited by Jun Awazu; only one character was created by Awazu’s friend, for the purpose of differentiating the characters likeness one from the other. The software used for production were 3Ds Max and After Effect 6.5 and a few plug-ins including Shag for Hair, Light Factory, and Twixtor. The hardest part of the production was modeling and animating human characters. Awazu also developed what he calls the “Awazu filter” to give the work a 1950-60s film look. The filter uses an after effect to add the layers of scratch, dust, and grain that gives the film an aging appearance.
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