Out of the void it arose - a brief history of Jimmy Stringbean

"Jimmy Stringbean VS. The Rock God of the Cosmos" arose out of a lifelong love of '70's punk music and monsters.

The film was shot on Super 8mm over a period of four days. The first of those four days was spent shooting the beginning of the film, in the Mojave Desert.

Here we are shooting the scene when Jimmy first plays the Eternal Guitar of Creation. Pictured is my Director of Photography, Franz Schmutzer, being led backwards by my Producer/Assistant Director, Carolyn Martin. Rather than the smooth look of tracking back with a dolly, we were going for a rugged, handheld look that would complement the grainy look of Super 8. This entailed my DP running backwards as fast as he can, all while attempting to keep Robbie in frame.

It's impossible to see from this angle, but the roof of the trailer that Robbie is standing on was rusted through. He is actually standing on the top rung of a very unsteady ladder.

Here is a frame from the same scene in the finished film. The "guitar pulses" were hand drawn and laid over the image in after effects.

The next three days of shooting were spent on a film stage, shooting the battle between Jimmy and the Rock God that takes place during the last half of the film. This entailed filming Robbie and the Rock God separately against a green-screen and combining the two elements in post-production.

Here is Robbie mimicking dodging meteors thrown by the Rock God. Because of the complexity of filming Jimmy and the Rock God separately, the entire battle was extensively storyboarded beforehand.

Here is a frame from the finished film of Jimmy dodging the meteors. The meteor (top right of the frame) was actually a 3-inch tall styrofoam ball that had been spray-painted black. The paint dissolved the styrofoam, which gave us the craggy look we were going for.

The Rock God was an 18-inch tall puppet that was made out of wire and latex. It was filmed using the process of stop-motion animation.

Here is the Rock God puppet as he looked during filming. The body of the puppet was held up by a PVC pipe base that was keyed out in Post-Production.

Here is the Rock God as he appears in the final film. The body of the Rock God was digitally rotated, and the asteroid was broken apart in after effects. Fellow monster enthusiast, Brian Engh, did the wonderful after effects work on the film.

There you have it folks! A brief look into the creative process behind the film. If anyone out there has any more questions regarding how "Jimmy Stringbean VS. The Rock God of the Cosmos" came to be, feel free to write in!

Your director,

Ben Stewart