Danny Aiello and Hoboken Film Festival














I am beyond thrilled to announce that Nothing to Say will see its debut festival screening at Hoboken Film Festival on May 22 at 8pm!!! 
The best part of this story is that Hoboken is EXACTLY where Billie Mintz and I recorded Danny Aiello back in 2001. I have heard that Danny may make an appearance too so it will be a happy reunion!


We sent the final film to Danny for his thoughts and was floored by his response. He said it gave him the emotional feelings of losing friends/loved ones on Sep 11, 2001. While the film does not directly reference this horrific event, I did storyboard ACT 2 just a few days after the towers fell. It would have been impossible not to transfer my feelings into the artwork and in fact I was heavily influenced by horrible news footage of people running away from the clouds of debris. You can directly see this reference in the film. This film is a message of tolerance and educating to instill empathy about displaced people after a tragedy. I was touched deeply that this resonated with Danny and I hope it does with the audience as well. 























Please enjoy some of the sketches we created after recording Danny Aiello as we studied his character driven movements and incredible range of voice performance. 

Although Zookeeper Dan was already a character in the film before we recorded Aiello (I kid you not his name was already Zookeeper DAN), we were able to alter his designs slightly after recording to give similarities in his appearance.
























After these initial sketches I would act out the scenes to help set up the composition and block out the movement of the characters. In the sketch below I was creating thumbnail sketches of Zookeeper Dan’s performance for SC 33 which you will also see the animation of the final scene. 

Danny Aiello's characters in his films (especially Sal the Pizza man in Spike Lee's DO the Right Thing) inspired Zookeeper Dan's transition from peaceful to livid 

And here are two of the final scenes in the film (SC 33 and SC 51):
































Artwork Credits: Geoff Donovan, George Fleming, Edward Han, Mark Ackland, Jules NG, Naeim Khavari, Mike Roberts, Luke Richardson, 

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