Blank
Disney & Google Present a Vinylmation Love Story
In search of his lost soul mate, an unpainted Vinylmation finds himself on a quest that alters the destiny of his entire world.
Blank is a tale of learning how to express who you really are through creativity.
An epic adventure on a miniature scale. An original, heartwarming love story filmed entirely in practical stop-motion.
World Premiere of Blank
Blank premiered at the El Capitan theater in Hollywood as a double feature alongside the special anniversary screening of the classic Disney film, Lady & the Tramp. Its theatrical run was extended for several months, screening after each showing of Frozen.
The following video was taken during a special cast, crew & family screening on the Disney Lot.
Group photo, from left to right (back row): Alfred Montejano, Mike Ambs, Alfonzo Estrada, Paul Foyder, Matt Wyatt, Thomas Scott, (front row): Whitfield Scheidegger, Matt Manning, Gino Roy, Greg Shewchuk.
The Beginning
It was July 2012, our small production studio in Burbank had just come in under budget on the last handful of wrapped projects —
Meaning, we were left with roughly $300 petty cash to spend on, well, anything, as long as it resulted in a sharable idea.
Our team spent the morning storyboarding an original short that would make use of some unpainted Vinylmation characters we happened to have laying around the office.
Little did we know, the stop-motion film we put together that night would become the next few years of our lives.
The Team
The short film starts turning heads internally at Disney HQ, soon, Blank is given the go-ahead as an 8-part series.
So began long, thrilling days of writing, drawing, and researching - throwing ourselves into the world of stop-motion filmmaking.
There were five of us who collaboratively directed this film,
Paul Foyder, Regino Roy III, Whitfield Scheidegger, Greg Shewchuk, and myself. Each of us found ourselves working in stop-motion professionally for the first time. Which meant every little thing we did was a learning experience. Below is a short video that Gino edited of our process creating Blank.
A note from Gino Roy
“What started as a fun test of stop motion with popular Disney collectible figurines, resulted in a partnership with Google for Valentine's Day, a screening alongside El Capitan's Valentine's traditional showing of Disney's Lady and The Tramp, a full year takeover of Downtown Disney with 3-foot statues of the Blank and Bow in the storefront of DStreet, apparel, toys, Disney collector pins, an official Disney App, an Academy Award qualifying film festival run, plus a nationwide showing in Disney Venues from Anaheim to Walt Disney World Florida.”
The world of Blank
A miniature world within Walt Disney's original Anaheim vision.
Each scene and location in Blank is mapped directly overtop of Disneyland —
We kept the scale of the park as is, and since our characters are only 3 inches tall, a trip from the Paint Factory to the Fix-it Factory (roughly following the train tracks behind the Jungle Cruise to Toon Town) is quite an adventure.
The story behind Blank will always be something very special to me —
A reminder of what is possible (even within a company the size of Disney) when a small group of friends come together and fight for a story they believe is worth telling.
A role of 8mm footage captured during production by co-director & co-writer Whitfield Scheidegger.
Behind the Scenes
Two 7x7s that show a brief glimpse into the production of Blank's pilot short film.
The week of July 22nd, our first night of filming the pilot - Blank took several hours (after our offices closed) to complete.
Wrapping up shooting, and presenting Blank to Erica, one of the first people outside of our immediate team to see the short.
Mystery of the Chaser