With the arrival of Saturday morning came huge amounts of excitement. Trampires were travelling from all directions for what was to be one of the first of many Chuck Steel promotional events, the prestigious London MCM Comic-Con.
Whilst many were coming from London, a hoard of Trampires boarded a bus from the studio, in anticipation for what promised to be an action packed day.
With the event taking place at London’s excel centre and an expected capacity of 130,000 people, there was a lot of work to be done.
On arrival, after a quick lunch work began immediately. With a couple of hours before the Panel (4:15-5:00pm) there was time to spread the word of Steel. Armed with promotional material, a few brave Trampires set out to conquer the Comic-Con crowd.
A couple of hundred leaflets down and a few hours later the panel began. Having drawn in an expectant crowd, Raging Balls of Steel Justice was first to be shown. After generating boisterous amusement, the topic then moved to Chuck on his current adventure, Night of the Trampires.
The next half an hour was filled with both exciting new content and previously unseen footage. First up was the history of Chuck. This provided a fascinating insight into his roots, stretching all the way from his creation in 1986 up to his current form.
Building on this was a video exploring behind the scenes at Animortal, this detailed the transformation from basement production to fully fledged Animation Studio. This video truly highlighted the time and devotion put into transforming Chuck Steel into a feature length film.
The final, and perhaps the most exciting feature was the release of the previously unseen 3-minute trailers. This combined key components from all areas of the film, demonstrating the pure scope of the film, whilst showcasing some of the best Stop-Motion production in history.
Following this, the panel moved onto the logistics behind the production. First up was Bridget (Head of Art Department) briefly detailing the painstaking efforts required in the creation of sets, of which 27 are still currently being used within the production. This point was further emphasised by Sam (Head of Puppets); his description of the ‘in-house’ production of over 400 puppets epitomised the hard work put in by all members of Animortal.
To round up the panel, questions were taken from the audience. Director Mike took the lead and using his usual passion imparted amongst other things the incredible journey of Chuck Steel from concept to creation.
