Eugene: So, tell us more about yourself. Tell us about the whole project, please.


Steven: I discovered animation during the pandemic lockdown in Los Angeles and I decided to start a new production company for it. I created some engaging shorts and series ideas. I also had the opportunity to write the video game for Ghostbusters Afterlife, which I'm very passionate about. I'm a huge Ghostbusters fan and I even have a proton pack on my wall. I also volunteer with the Los Angeles Ghostbusters organization and do charity work. But there was a challenge. Sony didn't allow me to include many easter eggs in the game and I had access to the whole plot of the movie before it was released. So I came up with a creative solution: make an animated Ghostbusters fan film that takes place before the movie and doesn't conflict with it. No one had ever done that before and I wanted to showcase my skills to Ivan Reitman's company, where I have some contacts. I also wanted to get a chance to work on the new Ghostbusters animated series that was announced on June 8. So this project was not only for my animation studio, but also for my love of Ghostbusters and my aspiration to be part of the new series. That's how it all started.


Eugene: Wow. Okay, well thank you for actually. Of course, it's always lovely to actually have the studio people actually create their own work here. So When I was actually coming up with the animation style, why did you choose the program that you did? 


Steven: I used Adobe Character Animator, which is a real time animation software that Adobe is promoting. They were very supportive and featured our short as one of their projects of the month. We could animate it very fast, in six days for an eight minute short. It was like home mo cap, where you can act everything out yourself. It also syncs the mouth movements with the audio files. The most difficult part was creating all the assets. I had a great artist, Logan Vander Wolf, who designed all the characters in a similar style as real Ghostbusters. I also drew all the locations and props with a lot of easter eggs from the movies, comics and cartoon show. I loved the scene where he used two extra lasers to lasso the ghost, like in the first episodes of Ghostbusters before they had the trap. I wondered what happened to all that slime. I based the whole story on Columbia University, where they have the biggest cyclotron in the world and where Ghostbusters taught in the movie. It's abandoned and graffitied now, but I thought it would be cool to imagine they had to use it as a giant proton pack for something big in Manhattan. I wanted to make it realistic and detailed, like Egon Spengler would do. I love easter eggs and little details like that. My son also helped me by drawing a little Stay Puft on the shelf. He was happy to be involved.


Eugene: Okay any words from Rob writer here, sir? Rob, tell us about your process. You know getting to make your own Ghostbusters theme song, etc. 


I had a lot of fun working on the score. I love synthesizers and Steven wanted me to do a synth wave score. We experimented with different versions of the theme song and we decided to go for a very chill and understated one. The rest of the score followed from that. Steven also liked the little piano thing that Bill Murray played in the first movie. I didn't realize that it was a recurring motif in the Ghostbusters franchise. Steven was very attentive to those details and I enjoyed incorporating them into the score. I also tried to use synthesizers for some of those elements. It was a lot of fun. I love the scene where the two extra lasers come up and the music is pumping. The visual with the spinning lasers is very intense. I get excited every time I watch it. I watched it on Monday and I thought it was great.


Eugene: That's fun to expand on the world that existed 30 years ago, because technology is obviously advanced so much now and there's so much more we can do. an afterlife focuses on the like the older style of everything. They don't update anything and afterlife and so it's kind of it was a lot of fun to be able to expand on that universe and play around with it for sure. Seriously, and just like if I didn't know it was going to be rare that you could actually disappoint the fans. See, after life, it was just a breath of fresh air. Yeah, lovely. Lovely.


Rob: I enjoyed the female Ghostbusters, but many people didn't. I think it's fun. I'm not very critical when I watch movies. I just want to have a good time and I do that. I love it.


Steven: My company is called Abyssmal with two s's. I'll put it in the chat. You can find all our work there. Rob, where can they find you? Composer Rob?


Rob: I'll put it in the chat too. I have a lot of short films on my website. I've done probably 50 of them. A lot of shorts.


Eugene: Thank you. We want to follow as many filmmakers as possible because we miss some of you guys. Some filmmakers disappeared and we want to find their old stuff. Where can we find it? We don't have a video center in every city here.


Rob: Well, you can look online and follow us there. I don't want you guys outside of my house at 3 in the morning now. Haha. 


Eugene: Look, I will cosplay characters if that's what it takes. Haha.


Steven: that would be something. We were excited about the special because we're based in Los Angeles. We usually do it in person but we couldn't this year because of covid. We're excited to get back to normalcy soon.


Rob: Yeah! Networking a little bit again. Normalcy. I went to the LA Film Fest the other day and met a bunch of people for the first time in two or three years. It was somewhat normal, but then I got Coronavirus. So ironic.


Eugene: That's why we're virtual right now. But we will have an in person event someday, someday. We'll figure this out. Oh my goodness. Absolutely.


Eugene: So, thank you so much. It's been a great time.


Steven: Thank you for having us


Eugene: A lot of awesome shorts. It's great to see everyone's interpretations of different fandoms. I feel like this is the online fandom cosplay. I was hoping to be the professional fanfiction and itt kind of turned into that. Haha.


Steven: Thank you so much to everyone today. We really appreciate it.