Amazon Studios: Codex

To say that we’ve been busy this last year is an understatement. We’ve been very fortunate to have a number of different projects come to us that have kept us pretty busy.

One of the more challenging, as well as more fun, is some work for Amazon Studios, which is the production side of Amazon. One of the things they are doing differently than other film production companies or movie studios is that they are doing a lot of visual development work up front. This is to help work out story kinks, test out movie and story ideas with the users at Amazon Studios and focus groups.

We were tasked with creating some short-form, broad-stroke storyboards, called “miniboards.” These basically illustrate the main beats of the story visually so it’s easier for test audiences to digest the story, instead of reading the script.

Codex is the first of three different projects we’re currently working with Amazon to develop visually. The story is a cool little mix of mystery, archaeology, action, and Nazi’s. It has the potential to be pretty fun.

About Codex
A graduate student attempts to unlock the secrets encoded within the oldest manuscript of the Old Testament and finds himself on the run from a dangerous society determined to use the secret for their own purposes.

For this project, we tapped Michael Hamlett to illustrate the boards, while I (Jeremy Mohler) handled the lettering. Mike did an outstanding job over quite a few different panels and I would strongly suggest you head over and give the story a read.