CAST & Crew
Dimitry Rozental is a charismatic, multilingual, bicoastal actor and voice-over artist hailing from the vibrant city of Odessa, Ukraine.
Jennifer Grossman is the CEO of the Atlas Society and has spent decades helping people to live freer, healthier lives.
Dan Parsons is an American comic book artist and illustrator. He is best known for his work on Star Wars and Game of Thrones.
Scott is an LA-based composer and has contributed his musical skills and talents to over 100 films and TV series. He is the composer for Little Pink House (2017), starring Oscar-nominated actress Catherine Keener and Emmy-nominated actress Jeanne Tripplehorn.
Ryan Rapsys is a Los Angeles-based film composer and electronic music producer. He scored the film Little Pink House (2017), starring Oscar-nominated actress Catherine Keener and Emmy-nominated actress Jeanne Tripplehorn.
Bryan Charles Wilson is a cellist, composer, educator, and author from Teaneck, New Jersey. A graduate of the California Institute of the Arts with a BFA in Cello Performance and Music Composition and New Jersey City University with a Masters of Music in Multi-Style Strings.
Letitia Capili is an artist and filmmaker based in Monterey, CA. She is known for her intricate mandala art designs and fine art pencil drawings.
Rob Capili is a writer and filmmaker based in Monterey, CA. He is a musician, software developer, digital marketer and BJJ instructor.
about
A beautiful, mysterious woman becomes the first female to step foot on Strastnoy Island — formerly a sea-bound monastery, now home to one of the Soviet Union’s most infamous prisons. The notorious Commandant Kareyev — aka “The Beast” — has requested the Soviet State send him a female companion, who presents herself as a former high-priced call girl.
Little does Karayev know she’s actually Joan Harding, an American citizen, who’s infiltrated with a mission: to free her husband, Michael Volkontzev. Joan struggles to fool “The Beast,” while striving to compel her true husband to keep her secret and follow her plan. Her grudging respect, and growing feelings for the Commandant add unanticipated complications to her masterful game.
The Making of Red Pawn: The Motion Comic
Making a motion comic is a lot of fun, but it requires a lot of planning. To take Red Pawn from the page to the screen, first it needed to be re-written as a screenplay.
Fun fact: voice actors get paid by the word, so you have to know exactly how many words they will be speaking in order to get a quote. Modern screenwriting software can tell you that, but first you need a script.
The next step was finding voice talent. Hundreds of people applied. I guess they saw, “Russian accent” and thought, “I got this.” But 99% of them sounded like a drunk guy impersonating Arnold Schwarzenegger in Red Heat.
Actors weren’t going to work. We needed a Russian.
We struck gold when we found Dmitry Rozental. Dmitry is one of THE BEST voice actors in the business. But he’s so busy, he doesn’t look for gigs. We had to hunt him down. Where hundreds of applicants failed, Dmitry was able to do every single male character. By himself.
We had already cast the female lead, so we began recording dialogue in earnest. At the same time, we started searching for composers. We needed dark thematic music to bring this dangerous world to life.
Once we had all of the audio assets, the real work began – converting every panel of every page into animated video clips, and editing them all together into episodes. I did this for every panel of every page of the graphic novel.
And this is the workflow that I used to do it. 👇🏽
Sound
Vocal performances are mixed with music and sound effects and edited to create a coherent scene.
Graphics
Graphic elements are cut out from the comic panels and separated into individual elements.
Animation
Graphic elements are animated and synchronized to the dialogue, music and sound tracks.
Editing
Animated clips are edited together to form completed episodes with dialogue, sound effects, music and visual effects.