Updated: See The Unfilmed Scenes Of Men In Black III (2012) Concept Art by Craig Shoji

Concept artist Craig Shoji has posted some illustrations he did for the hit film Men In Black III (2012) on his website.

Here's what Craig told me about working on Men In Black III.

It was another really fun dynamic working with the same creative team as THOR and since most of us transitioned straight on to MIB3, there wasn't really a lull in the chemistry and productive momentum. However, this time it was much more quirky 1969 and 2012 'alien' spaces instead of Norse, god-like 'alien' spaces.

The film went through a host of script changes and the art reflects that. For example, in one version, the jailbreak in the beginning had "Boris the Animal" (named "Boris the Biker" in the script) and his girlfriend "Devil Girl" escape from prison and travel back in time together. Apparently, there were scenes set at the World's Fair and a morgue at MIB headquarters. 

Craig cleared this up:

Q: This movie kind of establishes the '50s feel for the MIB headquarters. What was it like designing that?

It was a lot of fun to work on the '69 headquarters design. In the previous headquarter designs from the past movies, they referenced Eero Saarinen's furniture styling with the shape of the stem and base of his tables and also established the look of the mirrored row of chrome columns running down the walkway. When playing with these motifs for a more appropriate 60s feel we embraced the idea that the best architects of the era (Frank Lloyd Wright) had helped contribute to the space. This led to creating the lily pad columns similar to what he used in the Johnson Wax building. It worked out well cause these kept the older aesthetic motif of those iconic columns in the 2012 model and previous headquarters, as well as provided a light source and great graphic visual for the ceiling space.

A lot of other fun shapes we were playing with were smoothed out beveled rectangles in place of a lot of the ellipsoid and circular shapes in the 2012 version. This carried through the whole headquarters from screens, to windows, to walls and even the graphic pattern of the carpet.

There were some great 'mad men' brainstorm moments where we thought 'why wouldn't they have a bar in the middle of the headquarters? It would be great to see all the agents and aliens grabbing a scotch together so casually as they did in the 60s. So in a couple concepts I included that space in the headquarters, though I don't think it ever made it into the movie. :)

Q: The LunarMAX prison has shots of Boris "The Animal," but he looks very different. Were these early designs or just your interpretation from the script?
There was an early design for Boris from Rick Baker's team that I was referencing for that shot. It was before they settled on the prison garb, and refined all the finger-esque claws on him. I was responsible for illustrating the scene from the script when Boris blasts the hole in the prison and everyone flies out, but the details of how he 'clamps' down on the floor weren't worked out yet.

Q: There are two scenes I didn't see in the movie. Could you tell me about the "morgue" and World's Fair scenes?
Ah yeah, there were a couple scenes that didn't make it. I think Barry decided they slowed the pace down too much. There were a couple scenes written in where Will and Josh spend more time in 1969 in these different sets (galaxarium, and the morgue) digging up more info on Boris and his plans, but they got axed.

The World's Fair image is the wall mural that was used in the 1969 and 2012 headquarters. I was responsible for the design of that and putting a package together to be printed out at full scale. It was a great graphic break from all the interior designs, although it taxed my computer to the max with the file size.

First, LunarMAX prison for "Boris The Animal" (Jemaine Clement).

MIB Headquarters Galaxarium

Jet Pack Station

A deleted scene in the MIB morgue circa 1969

 

These are from MIB headquarters circa 1969

 

"The Shack"

There's a lot more to see, so head over to Craig Shoji's work at pensketch.com

What do you think of the concept designs?

The Game Has Changed In Phil Saunder's Tron Legacy (2010) Concept Art

Phil Saunders (Iron Man, The Avengers, Spider-Man 3) has posted some of the work he was involved in for the film Tron Legacy (2010).

He created some of it, while others are retouches or additions to existing designs by other artists.

Make sure you visit Phil Saunders site for details and the stories behind these amazing pieces at http://philsaunders.blogspot.com.


What do you think of the designs?

Artists of Men In Black III

Official Synopsis:
In Men in Black 3, Agents J (Will Smith) and K (Tommy Lee Jones) are back... in time. J has seen some inexplicable things in his 15 years with the Men in Black, but nothing, not even aliens, perplexes him as much as his wry, reticent partner. But when K's life and the fate of the planet are put at stake, Agent J will have to travel back in time to put things right. J discovers that there are secrets to the universe that K never told him -- secrets that will reveal themselves as he teams up with the young Agent K (Josh Brolin) to save his partner, the agency, and the future of humankind. The film is directed by Barry Sonnenfeld. The screenplay is written by Etan Cohen, based on the Malibu Comic by Lowell Cunningham. The producers are Walter F. Parkes and Laurie MacDonald, and the executive producers are Steven Spielberg and G. Mac Brown.

Release Date: May 25, 2012
Director: Barry Sonnenfeld
Cast: Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin

Production Design by Bo Welch

Illustrators
Vance Kovacs (concept artist) - http://www.vancekovacs.com/
Raj Rihal (concept artist) - www.totalrihal.com
Craig Shoji (concept artist) - http://pensketch.com/
Tully Summers (concept designer) - http://www.tullysummers.com/
Christopher S. Ross (conceptual illustrator) - http://dezyn.com/
Henrik Tamm (conceptual illustrator) - http://www.henriktamm.com
Paul Ozzimo - http://www.paulozzimo.com/
Kasra Farahani (Art Director) - www.zafron.com/
Clint Wallace (Set Designer) - http://www.clintwallace.com
Bobby Chui

Storyboard Artists 
Patrick Campbell  - http://www.italentco.com/profiles/patrick-campbell/
Brick Mason 

Genre: Action and Adventure, Comedy, Science Fiction
Official Site: http://www.meninblack.com
 
What do you think of the artists? Do you know of anyone that worked on the film I may have missed?

Exclusive: David J. Negron Jr. On The Battles Behind 'Battleship' (2012)

The blockbuster film Battleship (2012) is about Naval ships fighting a war against aliens, but it turns out there was an even bigger battle behind-the-scenes with the pre-production of the film.

In this never before told story, storyboard artist David J. Negron Jr. (G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows) talked with me about the challenges of bringing an extremely visual movie based on a board game to the screen. At the end are some exclusive storyboards from a key scene in the film.

"As in the name Battleship, preproduction was engaged in a battle of its own." Negron Jr. said, "Early November 2009 began the art department's preproduction of Battleship the movie. We had a very strong Art Department led by Neil Spisak (Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, Heat), which produced amazing visuals that brought the imagination of the film-makers to another level."

How Negron Jr. got involved on the project:

In January of 2010, I was hired on as one of three storyboard artists to start flushing out action sequences. During this time, the script was in a really rough draft and Peter Berg (Director) wanted to search for visual sequences that would ultimately steer the script in a direction. Early preliminary boards were really just an exercise in how far could we go with ideas. The three storyboard artists produced enough work to keep the pre-viz guys working on their sequence building, while Peter Berg was rethinking other possibilities.

One storyboard artist was let go after a few months, then myself and Tracy were left to continue working with Peter Burg. There was a constant redrawing and rethinking of huge sequences that Peter was searching for.

Another very key person in the design and development of the sequences was Tobias A. Schliessler, the Director of Photography. Tobias was an integral part in designing how shots should be viewed and incorporated into the film. 

Since most of the action takes place in CGI, Berg worked hard with the artists to visual the key battle scenes in a big empty space.

In an interview with MovieFone he said, "Literally nothing exists. So, you've got a plate of the ocean. You've got a big, wide shot of the ocean that we shot a year ago with a helicopter and I'm staring at that. And you ask, like, 'Okay. What are we going to do? We can start with this or this?' It's very challenging and I ask, 'Well, how have you done it before? Tell me how you've done it before.' 'Well, we've never done it. It's never been done.' 'It's never been done?' No. It has actually never been done before. We've never done this particular thing, and that's kind of awesome to hear."

Negron tells what it was like to work behind-the-scenes to help the director.

Once a pass of the boards were approved by Peter, they were then sent down to pre-viz (Previsualization) to begin working on the sequences. This added another dimension to the film as pre-vis was able to reconstruct the story-boarded sequences into a 3-D animated version. This is how it went for about for another two months and the second storyboard artist was then let go. The script continued to be revised with a variety of characters still being developed. 
 
With the action sequences still developing, the second unit director Phil Neilson was brought on. I storyboarded with Phil endlessly on sequences that offered carefully constructed and dynamic visuals that made Peter Berg jump with excitement as if we had just scored a touchdown!

All in all, I was on the show for about eight months and produced probably the most amount of storyboards for a film in my 24 year career.

As Peter Berg volleyed with the studio on the sequences and scale of the project, more sequences were drawn, developed, and pre-vized. 

On Peter Berg's style of leadership and directing:

Peter Berg directed with the leadership of a championship quarterback with 2 minutes left in the fourth quarter, every day. Being the football enthusiast that he is, I remember one day presenting him the KBAY (Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii) Shredder Helicopter Storyboard Sequence that I had laid out.  

He looked at it, then walked right past me and gave me one of those football slaps on the butt and said "good job!"  I think that meant he liked it.

That was Peter Burg. He can be aggressive, football coach-like, and hard on his staff, but that is only because he wants and expects the best out of us.

I think the whole crew delivered it's all on this film.  It took a lot out of us, but all of it got placed right back up on the screen.

Here's a clip from the movie of the alien "Shredders" attacking the Hawaiian base.

Here are some more from the film.

Thanks to David J. Negron Jr. for the story and the storyboards. You can see more of his portfolio at goliathpictures.com

Have you heard of another movie having as much trouble developing its scenes? What do you think of the storyboards?

The Avengers (2012) by Justin Sweet

Fantasy artist Justin Sweet (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, John Carter, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian) posted some art for The Avengers (2012) on his blog.

I'm proud to say I worked on Marvel's THE AVENGERS, directed by Joss Whedon. My task on this film was to develop the Aliens that the Avengers fight. It was a collaborative effort, and I worked along some very talented fellows.

Here are some of the aliens that I did ending with the last one that got the nod for the final. Fun trying to figure these guys out. - Justin Sweet

See more of Justin Sweet's portfolio at www.justinsweet.com and muddycolors.blogspot.com.

What do you think of the illustrations?