Journey from an ancient spark that helped ignited a key part of human invention through to our modern age
Now Running the Festival Circuit!
Trailer
Director’s Statement
From our early beginnings fire has been a creator as much if not more so than a destroyer.
Humanity's use of fire might be the single most important and pivotal event in our history. We have achieved so much from its use, from the first brave inventive applications for protection, cooking food, a hearth to weave stories all the way to pushing our probes to the farthest reaches of our Solar system. Our entire existence is interwoven with this chemical reaction.
In the film “From Fire” we attempt to show how profound it was for humans to manipulate something so dangerous to their needs with a number of vignettes of the many important inventive epochal events throughout human history.
“Prometheus, teacher in every art, brought the fire that hath proved to mortals a means to mighty ends.”
Inside the Production
An Idea, Like a Spark Ignites
The concept for this film, the initial spark, was about investigating what would be the most common denominator that allowed humans to not only proliferate but create a most unique culture to all other life on this planet. Easy right?
We often take for granted the progression of history, but it is important if not vital to recognizing the epoch elements (if not chance) that allowed this. In the past 30 years since the internet was born, the rate of technological advancement has been astounding. From a hypothetical connected network of global servers, to a physical synthetic neural net generating countless content trained on human accomplishment. What is a common origin for these magnificent human inventions? What was the originating catalyst? And how far back do we need to go to find that evolutionary nexus that fueled our achievements.
Concept Rough Storyboard Sketch by Evren Bilgihan
Project Planning
Having the right story and scope was highly important for this film. Especially since it covers so much of human history. We began with a rough story outline by researching key moments in history when the use of fire and its powerful chemical attributes influenced our culture.
In addition we built a series of very basic style frames to capture the imagery we wanted to convey from our research. This was everything from casting of molten metal, to the Voyager probes propelling out into the Cosmos.
Then combining those human milestone story frames into an animatic helped to convey the project pitch to the prospective creative team of potential artists, animators and composers.
Animatic Concept Rough Story-frames by Evren Bilgihan
Art and Motion
Bringing onboard an incredibly talented animator to translate the story concept was pivotal to making the story come to life.
As the projects art director, animator and illustrator Hannah Churn brings not only an amazing animation talent, but her artwork styling was an incredible advantage to add dimension and depth to the early concepts as shown in the initial style frames.
In addition her experience working as an art director at some of the biggest agencies provided an additional hands on visual direction and managing changes important to conveying the story. Hannah also was critical in helping to recruit a talented composer for the project’s score and sound mix.
Illustrations by Hannah Churn
A lightning strike causing a branch to catch spark a flame
Chemistry: Art, Animation, and Now Sound
Initially we were planning on doing the score and sound mix in house by utilizing stock libraries and a lot of effort. As music is not something we do very often we hadn’t considered a composer. However, with the suggestion and encouragement of Hannah we interviewed a number of candidates with Joe Basile AKA “The Chicken” being the Goldilocks option. Only now after bringing Joe on did we realize what we would be missing out on if we tried to do it ourselves.
Joe offers an array of talented compositional skills and imaginative sound engineering. After the first samples of the temp score we were thunderstruck by the complex mix sounds of the foley and score. These provide a pivotal layer to the key moments and thematic impression of the film.
Animation and Illustrations by Hannah Church, Sound Composition by Joe Basile
Meet the Team
Hannah Churn
Art Direction, Animation, and Illustrations
BIO: Hannah Churn is a freelance director and animator based in the Washington DC area, driven by her love for creating stories that evokes emotions. With over a decade of experience in the field, Hannah brings a wealth of expertise and creativity to her projects. She has had the privilege of collaborating with a diverse range of clients, including the American Red Cross, ACLU, and AARP. When not creating Hannah is perfecting her sourdough recipe and drawing a lot of cats.
Joe Basile
Composer and Sound Designer
BIO: Since 2009, Joe has worked in-house and as a freelancer as a music composer, sound designer, and audio engineer. He has created countless soundtracks for the world's biggest brands such as: ESPN, Samsung, Adobe, IBM, Comcast, Red Hat, Toshiba, American Express, Ring, and many others. His approach to audio is a merge of the acoustic and the electronic; the vintage and the modern. His style lands somewhere between sax-driven electro bossanova and 1960s Stockhausen. Music and sound design don’t feel separate for him. He considers them to be one element that helps to propel the emotional side of a campaign. He has a studio full of synthesizers, guitars, wind instruments, and percussion that help him to fully realize this concept for his clients
Evren Karl Bilgihan
Producer, Director and Written by
BIO: Visual artist and director with a passion for telling stories through a variety of mediums, "From Fire" is his first film. In addition, Evren is the Founder and Creative Director of Binary Beltway, a creative multimedia services firm focusing on storytelling. Evren is also a multimedia artist with 20 years of professional experience, and with a background in fine arts and visual communication. He grew up in Virginia but has been based out of California for about 10 years.
Extra Access
From Fire production has wrapped! And our animated short film is now entering the festival circuit stage. However, if you are interested in receiving news, updates and more about the film please consider reaching out to us on Linkedin!
“When all the other animals, downcast looked upon the earth, he [Prometheus] gave a face raised on high to man, and commanded him to see the sky and raise his high eyes to the stars.”