I don't know how I missed this for so long or perhaps I didn't. Maybe I was told and I forgot but tonight I saw a preview. If you don't already know I really really like Dave McKean's work(read he is a bit of a personal deity). and since I fell in love with sandman I have had Onerios around who seems to keep up on what's going on with Neil Gaimen and tell me the good stuff I shouldn't miss. Either he told me and I forgot or I never knew but anyway go and see MirrorMask. Get this "directed by Dave McKean, written by Neil Gaiman, and produced by The Jim Henson Company (quite the power trio, eh?). The film recently had its premiere (to critical and audience acclaim) during the Sundance Film Festival, and will arrive at a screen near you in the coming year". now i gotta go call all the arthouse movie theators and demand they show it here in philly and find copies of “The Week Before” and “N(eon)” so i can make it a triple feature.
"Early on in preproduction, McKean looked at going to a small effects studio, but it was too expensive with the overhead and production margins these studios have to have. “We couldn’t even use the Jim Henson Company to do the computer work,” he says, “because of our tight budget.”

Do It Yourself
“So, very quickly, we decided that the only way we were going to do this was to buy our own gear. So we used the effects budget of the film to buy a year’s worth of rent on a small studio space, a whole lot of computers and salaries for 16 animators.”

McKean creates all the texture maps in Photoshop. “Then I sit with the animators and set up the virtual camera moves and lights in Maya; I also give them motion references and act out some of the character parts."

extra links for this entry include TAODM, Dreamline, TDMP, Merry Karnowsky Gallery, and of course the MirrorMask site. and if your questoning the clunky transitions, bad grammer, or the your smart remark look here.