VANCOUVER, British Columbia, June 26, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Last Studio Standing, (www.laststudiostanding.com) the largest hand drawn studio in the Americas, kicked off its move into the English language market by acquiring William Gibson's sci-fi masterpiece Hinterlands. Gibson is best known as the father of the cyberpunk movement and coined the term "cyberspace". The first installment of his work will be brought to the screen in 2018.

"It is such a great story," says Jonathan Kitzen, CEO of Last Studio Standing. "We know we can do more with it because animation is an all-powerful tool that can create anything."  One of the reasons Last Studio Standing has moved to developing science fiction is the ability to produce content at the fraction of the cost of live action. "We plan on making something that looks like Gravity mixed with Blade Runner, and this story offers us a huge pallet of possibilities, for about $100 million less than a traditional live action film," says Kitzen.

In Hinterlands, a Russian space mission vanishes in mid-flight to Mars and reappears two years later. When a rescue mission reaches the ship, they find the cosmonaut dead but a seashell grasped in her hand.  What follows is the discovery of a passage to another place, where the technology isn't necessarily more advanced but just very different from our Universe. All future missions fail to bring back any digital data, only handwritten notes survive, and the crews come back dead or insane. This sets the stage for an intense mystery of what lies on the other side. The production focuses on the massive economic and social upheaval that follows and how it informs and changes the lives of the characters in the story.

"The mystery of the unknown is the most powerful story telling tool there is, and when you have the opportunity to combine it with science-fiction, to be able to show the audience the way things might be in the future, there is this real magic there," explains Hernan Zajec. "Jonathan wants us to use a lot of physics modeling for the movement, so it has this realism to it, which is what science-fiction is, and this is a really fun challenge!" 

The show goes to great lengths to ensure scientifically accurate and feasible concepts and stories. "We want this to appeal to the hard core sci-fi lovers and we will not treat the audience as idiots," says Kitzen. This means far more world building and a more extensive rulebook for the writers to follow to create a sense of consistency.

The studio plans to make a pilot and release it as a theatrical film, and will continue with a 100 x 30 episode television series.  There is a five-year plan for the series, which includes the possibility of an additional spin-off series. The team says the show will take animation to a place where no film has ever gone before.

About Last Studio Standing
Last Studio Standing is a merger between ConVRter Technologies, a Canadian based corporation and the recipient of National Research Council funding for experimental vision systems and Conexion Creativa, an award winning Colombian animation studio with the largest library of any Latin American company. It is currently the largest hand drawn animation studio in the Western Hemisphere.

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SOURCE Last Studio Standing

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