Down a corridor plastered with posters of half-human, half-plant faces, a door opens to a room displaying winged resin figurines and books on everything from Czech Art Nouveau painter Alphonse Mucha to Star Wars. At the Rhode Island School of Design's Center for Design and Business, hundreds of printouts of gritty alleyways and abandoned warehouses are scattered across tables.
In this room, students from RISD, employees of a local animation studio and a local director have teamed up to begin work on an animated horror film. The office belongs to the local studio, called The Story Hat, which is pioneering an effort to create the first completely computer-animated horror film in the industry.
Rhode Island producer and director Michael Corrente, the RISD students and Story Hat have already started preproduction work for the movie, "Bloodline." Set in a rough, urban neighborhood in a coastal town based on Providence, "Bloodline" tells the tale of a tattoo artist whose creations come to life and then terrorize their bearers.
"We were sitting over at the restaurant down the street from here," Mowrer said. "He overheard me telling someone about an idea that we had ... of this tattoo artist who has extraordinarily abilities. And he just leapt up and said, 'That's it, that's it!'"
