Hello and welcome to the ART e FACTs News Repository. This is where you can get updated, poke around, ask questions, and generally get a handle on what we’re on about.
I imagine you know or have heard something about the ART e FACTs Film Series or have seen our first movie – ART e FACT. We released it in January 2025. Maybe you’ve arrived here on one of those trance-like web searches tapping small veins of information hoping for the knowledge mother lode. Or maybe not.
So, in this post I’ll describe how a one paragraph scenario became a feature length screenplay which became a ten issue comic book series, which blossomed into an over ambitious transmedia storytelling art project which provided a universe of ideas for the present ART e FACTs Film Series.
The Creative Process Behind ART e FACT
The entire creative production process I’m sharing is relatively unique in that I’m a multidisciplinary creative. As well as a producer, I can shoulder multiple roles such as writer, director, composer, sound designer, and editor. As you can imagine, this demands endless passion for each task and one’s vision.
Origins: From Morning Inspiration to Global Project
So let me take you back to where this all started. ART e FACTs includes content and ideas drawn from an ambitious transmedia art project entitled I in the 22nd Century (i22) which I initiated in 2018 while living in Kyoto Japan. To help produce visual art, music, videos, and installations I commissioned a diverse team of artists. The narrative content for i22 was drawn from a comic series called SYNCANDI which I began publishing in July 2016. The source for the SYNCANDI comic was a feature length screenplay which I wrote in 2012. The screenplay was based on a one paragraph scenario which popped into my head one morning back in 2008 after binging on the Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. 2nd GIG anime series.
The Japanese Influence
It wasn’t until after I’d spent several years living in Japan that I revisited the original one paragraph scenario and decided to expand it into SYNCANDI. My first-hand encounter with Japanese society often left me puzzled and somewhat frustrated. I decided to channel my observations and cultural critique into expanding my original scenario. I was to later envision the i22 universe as a future history of Japan.
My experiences in Japan were nuanced, often inspiring. For example, adopting a transmedia storytelling approach for i22 was partly inspired by the Japanese entertainment industry Media Mix strategy – a transmedia storytelling and franchising approach where a single intellectual property is developed across multiple media formats from the beginning, each with unique content that contributes to a shared world or narrative experience. Before discovering Media Mix in Japan, I had, since the mid nineties, recognized the value of repurposing and extending storytelling IP across theatre, radio and music production.
Partnership and Pandemic Pivot
In 2020 during the Covid pandemic, I decided to focus my creative energies on producing a feature film series set in the i22 universe. ART e FACT is the first movie in the series. Since I either own or have licenses for all the i22 IP, I’m free to incorporate existing artworks into each film where appropriate. My partner, Emi Morita, came on board as a creative producer and, incidentally and somewhat reluctantly, provided the vocal tracks for the ten songs I composed and produced for ART e FACT.
The Barcelona Residency
In mid 2021 Emi and I relocated to Italy to continue developing ART e FACT. The decision was influenced by an invitation from L’Estruch, Fàbrica de creació de les arts en viu, a Barcelona performing arts organization based in Sabadell Catalunya. We were invited for a two month residency where L’Estruch would provide technical support, various studio and performance spaces plus accommodation. The proposal was for us to use their support to develop the ART e FACT project.
Proof of Concept Success
In November 2022 we travelled to Barcelona to shoot a 22 minute proof-of-concept film as R&D for the ART e FACT feature. From a purely logistical and technical perspective, physically going through the process of creating a proof of concept for a potential feature film was an invaluable exercise – particularly since this was our first narrative film.
Emi and I performed the roles of producer, line-producer, casting, and location scout and anything else that was necessary. Before arriving we hired two local actresses and a cinematographer.
The entire filmmaking experience in Sabadell proved that making micro budget quality feature films is not only possible but super enjoyable – especially when you put an optimistic problem solving philosophy into practice.
What’s Next
In a future post I’ll describe how we went on to make the ART e FACT feature film by applying what we learned from this Sabadell proof of concept experiment.
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One response to “From One Paragraph to Feature Film: A Not So Direct Path”
My favourite Japanese anime series, Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. 2nd GIG, was introduced to me by Robert. We watched it together and he explained everything about it. That was the beginning of my interest in his project. I simply couldn’t integrate into Japanese society and left Japan in my twenties. This anime series really helped me understand the reasons why. And this ART e FACTs project process also keeps asking me, again and again, where I come from and where I want to go. It feels rather like swimming endlessly in an ocean where no land is in sight.