UPSIDEDOWN MAGIC
Directed By Joe Nussbaum
Production Designed by Bill Boes
UpsideDown Magic is a TV movie done for Disney. It is based on a series of children's books of the same name. The film skews more towards Tweens and Teens than the source material, so we matured the look of everything to fit. It was important not to get too slick as younger fans of the books would want to see the film, and since there are some sinister elements to the film we didn't want it to get too intense. As a result there was a great deal of refining done, particularly with the icons for the different schools of magic.
Once we landed on the contemporary version of the Sage Academy logo, we outfitted the Groundskeeper / UDM instructor with several T-Shirts from days of Sage gone by.
This Academy is a unique mix of new and old. When I design things meant to look old, I illustrate how they should look finished.
The magic and textbooks were great fun but difficult in that Disney required that any language in the text had to make sense and be relevant to the topic. As the topic was magic, writing relevant copy pushed my imagination to the limits. Ultimately the pages were eye-catching and added texture to the scenes.
I teamed up with model maker extraordinaire Bill Boes on several designs. I would conceive and design and he would create mock ups and camera-ready pieces. The Story of Reginald Roberts is a cool part of the film where animated characters interact inside a book. My initial designs for this piece would be replaced digitally in post, so we decided to use the design, which I turned into a layered model, into a sort of invitation gift for the lead. Bill assembled it, made a wicked braided branch frame and lit it from behind creating a special moment in the film.
The finale was a big production and my renderings for the Founders Day stage became the model for the finished CGI version.
I do myriad books and magazines in this work. No books were more interesting than the one's in this film. Ancient texts with covers made of brittle leather and organic materials were interwined with more traditional looking textbooks. Add in the book with the animated story and you end up with a feature filled with rich details.
NWC