Atlas: The Animated Movie - Answering the Question, Can a Solo, Independent Creator Make an Animated Feature Film

Watch Atlas: The Animated Movie
on YouTube.

While I'm not averse to Superhero content I must admit, what really piqued my interest in Austin McConnell's first animated feature film, Atlas: The Animated Movie, is that it was made with Reallusion's iClone. More on that later.

The full movie is available right now on Youtube (just click the links) and follows the journey of a somewhat ineffective nobody, Jim Randall, as he becomes the superhero nobody was asking for.

I gave the movie my full attention by watching it on my home digital projector which is about a 71" screen. 

Despite the technical aspects of the film, the character design, cg animation etc. being not even close to modern standards, the story is quite engaging, with interesting characters, and is very watchable.

It's not a particularly complex plot, with no big surprises or twists that are going to blow your mind, but it is fun, and truly inspiring that all this was made and produced by one person over four years.

I also think it is quite genius that, instead of developing entirely new I.P. Austin researched superhero characters from comics that are currently in the public domain, and decided to create his own cinematic universe from those existing stories (watch for his next release, Catman - which is due out toward the end of this year).

If he keeps developing this particular 'Public Domain Superzero' universe, it's worth keeping in mind that the original, 1939 Batman will become public domain on Jan 1st 2035 - and the original 1938 Superman a year before. 

Anyway, a couple of other impressive things: Austin funded Atlas (and Catman) with successful Kickstarter campaigns, and, as mentioned up top, the animation was done with Reallusion's iClone, which Austin had to learn because he's not really an animator. Watch his behind the scenes video below.

i learned 3D animation to make this 1 movie

Notice too, that the characters were designed with Reallusion's Character creator. Which is what drew me toward the project. There was something about the characters that screamed 'Reallusion' to me. 

It's interesting that he went down the path of performing every character's animation with motion capture - right down to making sure his lip syncing matched with his voice actor's performance.

Personally I would've leaned more into utilizing iClone's pre-made motion clips, but hey, his budget allowed for a motion capture suit so why not?

The real takeaway is that the movie got made, and even had a Kickstarter backed production budget. I know many of us solo and indy creators have basically no budget. Oh, and did you notice Austin just casually threw in that he had to overcome 'heart failure' during the production - he wasn't speaking metaphorically, he really had heart failure.

Atlas, the movie, could've probably done with more polish, with over 900 shots, done is better than perfect. No doubt Austin's next 3D, animated feature, will look better. (Catman, which is a 2D animated production looks as good as any big studio cartoon release so far).

If someone can make a 3D feature with iClone, then it's certainly possible to make a 2D feature with Cartoon Animator 5.

To finish up I'm going to give Austin the last word, talking about Atlas and his next animated feature, Catman. If you've watched the previous videos there's not too much new here, however, it was recorded after Atlas was released and gives you some info on how you can continue to support his work. At the very least, subscribe to his YouTube channel and be inspired by his work.

They Said Superhero Movies Were Dead. So I Made My Own.

Edit: Austin recently released the video below which I include here because it's one of the most detailed debriefings of a huge animation project I've ever heard from a first time feature film creator.

Well worth your time because it's like Austin learned all the time saving tricks through the course of making the film, so listen up, and implement them on whatever your doing (particularly his notes on reworking scenes 'to make them better').

How I Learned 3D Animation in Just 1,506 Days

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