The Familiars Movie - Visual Development

For those of you following the Familiars blog, we thought you might be interested not only in the adventures of the book getting released, but also in the adaptation of the book into a movie. We have been writing the screenplay for the Familiars since last fall, working with producer/director Sam Raimi (Spider-Man) and Sony Animation (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) to turn our novel into a 3D animated film. And recently, as the script continues to evolve, an amazing team of artists at Sony has begun the visual development of the movie. Visual Development starts with the script in exploring all the visual aspects of the film including the overall scale and canvas of the story, time and era of the film, mood of the settings, the look of the characters, right into the tone and drama of each scene. It assists all collaborators in the process in seeing and understanding the vision for the film. It also means walls and walls covered with paintings of locations, character designs, and scenes straight out of the script brought to mind-blowing life! We would love to share some of this artwork with you, but Sony Animation is keeping it guarded under lock and key. So you'll just have to take our word for it: it's freakin' awesome!

Please let us know what you would like us to focus on? What burning questions do you have about the process of turning a book into a film? An animated film?

Over the next few weeks and months, we'll take you inside the halls of Sony and share with you the ups, downs, twists, and turns as we experience them.