Reddit AMA Recap: Phil Tippett Talks Up MAD GOD

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Legendary film maker Phil Tippett recently took part in a Reddit AMA to promote his latest stop-motion animated film, MAD GOD. The short-film is streaming now on Shudder and is slated for a DVD release here in America on December 9th, so Phil took time out of his busy schedule to take questions from his adoring fans. We have the highlights below and you can read more of Phil’s AMA here.

Toughest sequence to bring to life

The toughest sequence was the creation of the universe and the evolutionary arc, comprising the rise of life, mankind’s great cities, and the destruction of civilization. Their destruction is an Einsteinian view of time. That was the idea – the structure of the final scenes, but I just shot for 2 years, not really knowing what I was doing, much like Kubrick did in the early stages of 2001. And then I left it to editor Ken Rogerson to put it all together.

How he managed the production of MAD GOD over a 30 year time-frame

I had no producer lurking over me and I did whatever I wanted to do. Many ideas for the scenes were developed 30 years ago. Recently we were looking at some of the very early mock-ups of MAD GOD that we edited together with the 3-minutes of footage that I had shot years ago, supplemented with storyboards. That piece was approximately 10 minutes long and contained everything that the movie wanted to be. We were all surprised at how cohesive the vision was once there was the spark – everything came into focus at once. As with many artists, you’ll hear the same thing, which is “it was a religious experience.” I was just listening to Bono saying the exact same thing. And Brian Eno. So many artists just say exactly the same thing. When Bach, Beethoven and Mozart would give the equivalent of interviews in their day, they would say, “I was just transcribing. Everything came from God.” funny how that works.

On how the music score came to be (you can buy it here)

I met Dan Wool and sound designer Richard Beggs through our mutual friend Alex Cox. The music Dan did for Alex’s movies was quite Morricone-esque. I asked him if he might be interested in doing the score, and showed him some experimental sound/image pieces that I had done as hi-8 sketches, which were quite abstract and ambient, which is what Dan was really interested in. It was a marriage made in heaven.

On what Phil is working on next

I have a few projects in development. I have a stop motion episodic feature called “Pequins Pendequin”

Read our review of Phil Tippett’s MAD GOD here.

About John Schwarz

John is the Chief Editor and Founder of Bubbleblabber.com. While at first a part-time project, Bubbleblabber quickly grew into a full-fledged operation and officially became a company in 2014. When John isn't running a business full-time, he likes to go to concerts with your mother.