News for February 2020:
Announcing Los àngeles, a book of illustrations and storyboards by Sylvain Despretz, covering 25 years of career in Hollywood.The book contains paintings, writing about film and visual language, storyboards for films that include Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Alien Resurrection, and many more projects, as well as images for Tim Burton’s long lost Superman project.
The US version will first be made available through advance orders via Kickstarter in March 2020, with an anticipated release for May 2020.Other languages including French and German will be available in September 2020.
From the publisher’s review:
“Modeled after its urban namesake, Los ángeles is a book of many faces, teaming with angels and deities of the silver screen. For over twenty years, Sylvain Despretz has worked behind the scenes, and at the side of the mightiest of them.
A renowned artist who works in the shadows, he has helped pen the visions of Ridley Scott, David Fincher, Andrei Konchalovsky, Mike Newell, Tim Burton and Stanley Kubrick, to name but a few.
Storyboards, concept art, paintings and illustration for The Fifth Element, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Eyes Wide Shut, along with scores of lesser known works, Sylvain’s palette of talents has been deployed to bring emblematic works to fruition.
This volume is not a catalogue, or a how-to manual; it is far more than that: throughout the pages, the author reveals his calling, that of artisan and craftsman, putting his talents to work at the feet of a dream factory called Hollywood. Peppered with anecdotes, observations and musings about several decades spent in film, this unique book is a must-have for all those interested in pursuing art or cinema…”
More information here soon, and on the publisher’s web page.
Los àngeles, film storyboards and song of sirens caught in celluloid.
News for the fall (September/October 2018):
Sylvain will be a guest at the Science Fiction Festival des Utopiales in Nantes, France, from October 31st to November 4th, 2018.
Brand X: UPDATE!
Continuing with the episodic, yet steadfast filming of Brand X: The Desert Years, a musical film about the legendary Jazz-Prog band recently reunited after a decades-long hiatus.
Our most recent footage involves a 3-day interview session with bass player Percy Jones in his home village of Abbeycwmhir near Llandrindod Wells, in the Welsh countryside. Percy spoke at length about his life, his youth, influences, musical ideals, collaborations, his angst and occasional frustrations, and shared his passion for electronics and Morse-code. We also spoke to his wife Joyce, and their son Dylan, who dropped-in from Norway, his present home.
On site were our trustee British crew: Chris Jones, cinematographer, and Neil Sherman, sound-man.
(Below) Percy is seen refreshing his memory on a Brand X tune he hasn’t heard in 40 years. (More filming to come.)
View the Brand X film teaser here:
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News for July 2018:
New music video for Jack Lancaster’s “The Whale’s Song” is out. It features a lead vocal from Phil Collins, and piano from Rod Argent.
The video features rushes from an earlier, unfinished science fiction project:
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News for March/April 2018:
As filming progresses, throughout this year, we announce a website launch in connection with the film project Brand X, The Desert Years.
New music video of Brand X, “The Poke” is out:
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News for December 2017:
It’s on!
Brand X – The Desert Years : we’ve begun principal photography.
This film looks at the story of the mythic Jazz/Fusion/Prog band from the 1970’s whose members recently regrouped after being “on hold” for nearly thirty years.
By reuniting in 2016, Brand X has become the longest living fusion band in the music business, outliving the likes of Weather Report, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Magma, to name only a few among its cousins.
The piece will feature extensive interviews with the many musical talents that have passed through Brand X, including John Goodsall, Percy Jones, Robin Lumley, Peter Robinson, Jack Lancaster, Scott Weinberger, Kenny Grohowski, Mike Miller, Chris Clarke, Kenwood Dennard, and Phil Collins.
The film will also showcase Brand X in the studio, and in concert, offering the viewer a front row seat to their stunning virtuoso performance.
Brand X – The Desert Years examines the fate of the many players through their roughest patches, through the wilderness, as the musical landscape morphed from the 1970s into our present paradigm.
Brand X – The Desert Years
Produced and directed by Sylvain Despretz.
Cinematography (Los Angeles Unit) by Brian Hoodenpyle
With: John Goodsall, Percy Jones, Chris Clark, Kenny Grohowski, Scott Weinberger, Jack Lancaster, Peter Robinson, and Robin Lumley. And special guests.
Filming throughout North America and the United Kingdom, in 2017 and 2018
Completion anticipated for 2019.
News for July 2017:
Check out “Podcasting Them Softly” for a discussion on a career in film storyboarding.
Conceptually Speaking: An Interview with Sylvain Despretz by Kent Hill
Sylvain Despretz talks with Kent Hill about a career in film storyboard craft
News for June 2017:
French television (Canal+) feature on storyboard craft:
News for April 2017:
Some images from Luc Besson’s ‘VALERIAN and the City of a Thousand Planets’ are beginning to drop.
We can’t show you the art just yet, but you can catch a glimpse of the film below:
100 Days with Valerian, at COMING SOON.NET
News for March 2017:
Hard at work on the development of “The Desert Years”
A musical project involving several masterful fusion-jazz players from the 1970s.
(Backstage at Daryl’s House with BRAND X: Percy Jones, Kenwood Dennard, Scott Weinberger, John Goodsall, and Chris Clark, Pawling NY, 2017)
News for April 2016:
Watch (the late, great) Jon Schnepp’s homage to Michael’s Snow’s 1967 experimental film “Wavelength“.
This four minute short features Sylvain’s rant about the current decline of Cinema as it chokes under the crushing weight of idiotic Comic Book Superheroes, and the curse of audience apathy, in this age of dying intellectual discourse.
This is excerpted from Jon Schnepp’s 2015 film “The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened? ”
Jon Schnepp a beloved artist, director, and commentator, passed away in the summer of 2018.
©2015, Schneppzone & Super Skull Ship, LLC
News for the Spring of 2015:
Post production is pushing ahead at Knightworks, Paris, on the visual effects of Cool Your Jets! Since February 2015, the studio has been hard at work with new recruits.
Completion for later this year? The title says it all; fingers crossed though…
News for February 2015:
Jon Schnepp’s new documentary, “The Death of Superman Lives – What Happened?”, about Tim Burton’s 1997 SUPERMAN project is about to wrap.
With Jon Schneep in East London, November 2014
With Holly Payne and Jon Schnepp.
We met in London, in November 2014, to film our discussion about the now legendary, ill fated effort by Warner Brothers to get this non-film off the ground (Posing here in London’s East End, with the documentary’s producer Holly Payne and director Jon Schnepp).
Read more at the documentary’s Facebook page.
A rare original production painting for the ill fated 1997 Superman Project. (From the artist’s private collection)
Are Comic Book movies dragging the film business into the dreariest and most unimaginative phase of its hundred year history?
Stay tuned for the May 2015 release of “The Death of Superman Lives – What Happened?” !
The “*@!!*#@?!!” of Superman.
This winter, at a bookstore near you:
Alien, the archive – by Mark Salisbury
A new book on the art of the Alien franchise, “Alien – the archive” by Mark Salisbury, from Titan Books, features new images of various weapon designs for Alien Resurrection, as well as a new look at the creation of the spaceship “Auriga”.
The Auriga: an undignified spacecraft!
Weaponized wheelchair.
The Auriga model.
Ripley’s main gun.
Birth chamber.
Cal’s gun.
AUGUST 2014:
And still, in the background, at a bookstore not too far…
Movie Storyboards: The Art of Visualizing Screenplays
A bit late for the drawing board, but this comprehensive book on 100 years of storyboard art features a little nod to the art of Gladiator. What’s more, the book features the artwork of Saul Bass, William Cameron Menzies, Salvador Dali, Harold Michelson, Wiard B. Ihnen, Bill Herwig, Nicholas Ray, John Box, Thomas A. Wright, Akira Kurosawa, Martin Scorsese, Mentor Huebner… You get the idea. As always, not a penny goes to the artists, so you really won’t be supporting the people who did the artwork by buying this, but it’s worth a glance for free at your local specialty bookstore because it’s the first such collection dedicated to the craft, and for once, the selection is easy on the eyes.
APRIL 2014:
The Whispered: Interview Part One, a general discussion about shifting gears.
The Whispered-Codex: Interview Part Two, on art and film directors
This extensive photo-essay was conducted in the summer of 2013 by Jakob deBoer, as part of his Masters Series sponsored by Leica Lenses.
The discussion covers many topics, from adventures in movie making to metaphysics.
