Behind The Seen: Alex Pardee
Posted by Rob Ortenzi on 23-May-08 @ 04:02 PM
ALEX PARDEE's eye-catching artwork has graced the covers of albums by the Used and Aiden, but now he's making his Used-sponsored, box-headed Chadam character into an animated 3-D reality with a little help from HD Films and cutting edge video-game technology. What was the Chadam character inspired by? When the Used asked me to do the art for their new album [Lies For The Liars], we came up with the idea of making a living version of a painting. We ended up building a whole living universe around the music, and Chadam became the narrator. He's the embodiment of a lot of the emotions they were having at the time. But as far as inspiration, the best thing I can compare him to is Eddie [the mascot] from Iron Maiden. So he's an icon for the band? Exactly. But with Eddie, there was never a full world outside of the character, never an emotional attachment. We wanted to see if we could get people attached to something that was outside the music but still inspired by it. I built a Chadam MySpace page, made little videos online and wrote blogs as if Chadam was alive, slowly introducing this world that he lives in. I ended up with, like, a 50-page story on MySpace that got a lot of attention. How did HD Films get involved? They got wind of the Chadam MySpace page and said they had this new technology [Unreal Engine 3] they wanted to do something with. It's used to make video games, like the commercial for [Xbox 360's] Gears Of War with Gary Jules' [cover of] "Mad World," which has the most beautiful animation ever. What's the plan, exactly? We're making a 10-episode series that should be online sometime in July. It's 10 five-minute episodes, but it's more like a 50-minute movie. It's a fairy tale, and it all takes place in this world that revolves around Chadam. In the world where he lives, imagination is a separate gland and he was born with the most powerful imagination gland in history-so much that he can physically manipulate the environment with his imagination. It's part horror, part fantasy, part sci-fi and part coming of age story. There are a lot of parts. -J. Bennett To view the evolution of Chadam, log onto his myspace. |
