Animation: New Frontiers for Tales from Paradise Heights 

Poster by Darren McGinn

In autumn of last year I got together with long time Tales from Paradise Heights collaborator Darren McGinn.  Darren has been responsible for the posters, trailers and general identifiable imagery of Tales from Paradise Heights down the years.  His work has been nothing short of fantastic and is often the first thing that sells the tale, the story, the iconic imagery that invites you the audience in.  The series has now bridged film, theatre, poetry, art, graphic novel, novel and musical form - the next step I wanted to take was animation.  Darren had done some animation in the stunning trailers he had produced for the series over the years so I asked if he was up for it.  He was.  

Now deep within this site there is a page of poetry of mine that I add to from time to time, at least a couple of them would make good stories, and would lend themselves well to the cinematic frame, I asked him to have a look and I kind of knew which one he would pick...

The Night Death Put Me Down

I drew a few story boards around look and feel (above), sat down with Darren and with sound and music man of The Heights - Justin Wetherill, and we were off.  Darren recorded my voice over at his house, Justin set to at his place on sound and music and Darren set off to do the majority of the work. Darren's load was 3D character building, world building and animation sprinkled with a few sound effects of his own - all the long hours of arduous work, with a couple of meets with me along the way and further discussion on how to shape the film.  The film was also the perfect opportunity to give nods to the other stories in the series, so there are Easter eggs galore in the film, with nods to the Paradise Heights tales I'm Frank Morgan, The Bench, Rank, Diane's Deli and Strawberry Jack - there's even a shot of Red, the fox from I'm Frank Morgan: RewiRED.  And a few chat's with Justin and his final score for the film is perfect, haunting and profound.  The whole film put together by three people, not bad.  

A special mention in terms of Darren's artistic ability here, with a number of characters from The Heights instantly recognisable, among them Shirley - the angel of Paradise Heights seen in The Bench, Rank and Strawberry Jack - and mentioned in Diane's Deli, Strawberry Jack mentioned in Diane's Deli, Rank, I'm Frank Morgan: RewiRED and of course his own play, and then there's Danny the traumatised ex fire man now living on the streets seen in The Watcher.  The other characters?  You'll see in the final film...

Check the slideshow below for some of Darren's fantastic renderings in the film...

With all the other work that has been going on in Tales from Paradise Heights of late (the upcoming tours of The Haunting of Blaine Manor and I'm Frank Morgan: RewiRED) The Night Death Put Me Down has been the neglected child of the series.  Not anymore.  The film will be having various screenings this year and will be entered into film festivals etc, and we are so pleased with the final results that we know there will be further animated tales to come.  

Below are a couple of model and animation tests Darren did for the film.  

Below is the teaser trailer for the film.

Stay up to date with what's happening with the film on this page, more updates soon...

Joe x