J. Stephan Leeper

Story Beats-Act 2

Even though the story arc for Br. Thomas is firmly in place the second act leaves lots of room for development.

Basically Thomas blows off work that day and finds great joy as he celebrates his freedom with the animals, which ends in a moment of epiphany. From there he sits down to reflect, observe, and record what he has experienced. He paints late into the evening, changing his palette as the light changes, and finishing his work lit by shafts of moonlight filtering through the trees.

As you can see from the beats I have plenty to flesh out.

Click on the images to see the full page. To see more go to the Br. Thomas Page or click on the category to the left.

Story Beats-act 1

I’m coming to realize that I can’t simultaneously post finished images AND move the Br. Thomas project forward (not while having a family-life and keeping my day-job). So for the time being this blog becomes a forum for posting works in progress…mostly related to Br. Thomas. Here’ a page of rough beats for the first act. This hits the major story points and starts to give some sense of cinematography and pacing to the piece. I can’t wait to start refining these images and start filling in what happens between the beats.

Click on the images to see the full page. To see more go to the Br. Thomas Page or click on the category to the left.

Brother Thomas-Happy Dance!

This is an image I’ve taken from the story beats for a short film I want to make called The Temptation of Brother Thomas. The real title for the image is The Procession but “Happy Dance” does a better job of capturing my immediate mood. I recently found out that I received the Research Fellowship Grant from Huntington University which will allow me up to a year (along with some cash) to develop Brother Thomas into a completed film concept.

Development includes exploring old cathedrals and illuminated manuscripts as well as other artifacts from Church history. I will also be investigating stop-motion and digital graphic techniques, and doing a whole lot of drawing in the next 12 months. Some friends have stepped up to help out in story development and visual design so I’m thinking that a year from now we’ll have a great package to take on the road…so to speak. I will also be using this time to research funding options that can help get this little guy up on a screen.

If you would like to see more Br. Thomas images check out the page I currently have devoted to him here. I’m sure this page will be expanding over the following months.

Still Life

Sorry it’s been a while,

Here’s a quick value study of a still life. I’m still looking for a visual style for my Fishbones concept. I’m pretty committed to some sort of woodcut look but in the meantime these value studies help me to sort out the world these characters live in.

The Temptation of Brother Thomas

I know it’s been a while but I’ve spent the last two weeks working on a proposal for a development grant for for Br. Thomas. I hope you’ll forgive me posting old work but he’s been on my mind a lot lately and I’m really hoping something comes from the proposal. If you haven’t seen him before you can check out other development images here.

The Gleaners-Final

I was originally going to call this “Sojourners” but that seemed pretty obscure (not that “The Gleaners” is going to win any popularity contests). This image was inspired by a passage in Deuteronomy about orphans, widows, and aliens (or sojourners). Then I remembered the OT laws about over-harvesting fields and making sure to leave the second and third pass to those less fortunate than you. A subject that gets overlooked in these days of economic downturns and fiscal responsibility. I’ll be entering a print of this in my alumnus show in Boston this January.

It also reminded me of a great documentary by Agnes Vargas called “The Gleaners and I” about people learning to live modestly in a society drunk on abundance. You can see excerpts from it herehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKgjjEJvMbM

Gleaners-Sketch

Here’s a very early sketch of the digital woodcut I’ll be posting next. I really liked this image so I was pretty nervous about actually doing anything with it. I think the final retained the warmth and dignity that I’m getting from the sketch.

Sand Animation

A friend of mine just pointed out that I hadn’t posted any of the sand animation I was doing a few years ago. Thanks for the reminder Martha. One of these days I’ll have to pick this medium up again. I really love the immediacy of the process. More like performing live than any other work I’ve done. The following clip is a montage of a lot of smaller pieces I was doing for my MFA. I was creating one short animation a day for about three weeks running. I left a lot out but trust me… there’s a whole lot you don’t want to see. Enjoy.

Sand Montage from Steve Leeper on Vimeo.

Fishbones Border

I really have been working though my lack of postings may lead you to believe otherwise.

I’ve been focusing mainly on storyboards over the past couple of weeks and I’m still not sure how to go about posting the progress on them (and there has been some really good progress). For the time being I’ll post this image of a border scroll that I’m working on. Working this small really keeps the images simple and somewhat primitive. A look I hope I can hold onto as the film develops.

I really like how the Mermaid has taken shape and how the plant itself complements her form. Part of me thinks this could get way more detailed and the other part wants to get it out there and live with it a while. I’ll leave that question up to you. More detail?? or leave her surrounded in murky blackness? Either way I would love some input and in the meantime I’ll try to figure out how I want to start posting some of the rough storyboards.

Sketch and Clay

This is a short animation I did with a handful of highschool students at summer Bible camp. We only had a few hours set aside that week to work on it but they gave up their free time to finish it up.

Special thanks to Kirsten, Jesikah, Ashley, Jake, Peter and special props to Andrew whose drawn animation skills held this together.

Sketch and Clay-BLBC 2010 from Steve Leeper on Vimeo.

Story Beats-Act 2

Story Beats-act 1

Brother Thomas-Happy Dance!

Still Life

The Temptation of Brother Thomas

The Gleaners-Final

Gleaners-Sketch

Sand Animation

Fishbones Border

Sketch and Clay

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