Alexander Ivanov

At first, I was just learning 3D and modeling all sorts of little things. I started with a TV, then made one character, then another, and eventually a story formed around all of it.

Basically, it was about computer clubs. Suddenly I remembered the ones I used to go to as a kid, and thought since this is all about nostalgia and the 2000s, why not use that old-school technique where everything looks like an old video game?

No, but I remember the kinds of people who usually hung out there. I remember what the administrators were like, what the kids were like. If I’m in those characters at all, I’m more like one of the kids. I was about that age when these computer clubs existed. They were pretty shady places.

That part is from imagination. I just wanted to make some kind of action movie. Why not add gangsters? That theme is popular now. In the early 2000s that era was already fading out, but there were still gangs around, especially in St. Petersburg.

I wrote the script myself. But a friend from work helped me with the sound. He handled both the music and the film itself, because my skills in that area were much weaker. He also found English-speaking voice actors.

As for the script… To be honest, I didn’t really write it out in detail. I mean the paper version. I immediately decided that there would be a storyboard and, at times, just a general idea, and that would be enough. Since I was working for myself, it felt like I didn’t really need a proper script.

The process was very slow anyway; I had time to think things over ten times and change my mind ten times. But sometimes I’d come up with a line for a character, a particular phrasing, and think: “I need to write that down.” Occasionally I’d imagine an interesting camera angle or a mise-en-scène decision, and I’d sketch it right away as part of the storyboard.

In general, scripts and storyboards are mostly for working with other people to make it easier for them to understand the idea. But when you’re working on your own, they’re mainly there so you don’t forget what you came up with a week ago.

I worked on it for about five years, in my free time after work. It was a non-commercial project. Whenever I had free time, I worked on it, so there was time to think things over.

The first drafts in Blender and 3D were around 2019–2020. Now it’s 2025, and I finished the film about six months ago. So not five years, more like four and a half. Right now, I’m busy sending it to festivals. So the work still continues.

That was the whole idea. I even slightly softened it in the sense that I wanted the Russian translation itself to be somewhat improvised. I know that back then, films on VHS tapes were translated very quickly, in one or two takes. So, for authenticity, I thought about making it seem like the translator was sometimes falling behind or missing a few lines here and there. Basically, more mismatches.

But when we started doing it that way, it didn’t come out as authentically as I had hoped, it just disrupted the rhythm of the film. So I decided to make a synchronized translation instead, which was enough to convey the general concept. But yes, the idea of having a single-voice voiceover was there from the very beginning. I found the English-speaking actors through my sound engineer friend, and by the way, they worked for free. They’re all amateurs.

Because of that, the production took longer. When you work with people for free, you can’t really pressure them, so they deliver when they can. I waited quite a long time for the voiceover. Basically, everyone would send me their material, I’d listen, watch, and say: “This part needs to be re-recorded, that one too,” and then we’d wait another week or two for someone to redo a line or two. That’s what unpaid work looks like.

I also thought about doing something else… Well, it’s a little detail only those who played old games would know. In pirated versions of games, Cyrillic was often not supported, and the pirates would write Russian words using the English keyboard layout. Sometimes you could see, for example, the number 3 used as the Russian letter “З,” or the English “R” used as “Я.” Basically, they improvised however they could. But in the end, I realized it wouldn’t be readable at all. And people unfamiliar with the context of pirated game translations wouldn’t understand the reference — they’d just think I was an idiot.

First of all, there’s definitely a reference to those Kashpirovsky-style magic rituals. Naturally, for a foreign viewer, that will be something strange, but you can’t please everyone. I tried to explain what it is briefly in the text. If they get it, they get it, if they don’t, they don’t.

When I was working with the voice actors, by the way, they somehow caught the essence of it. I asked them, “Do you know what this is? Do you understand it?” The actors said it seemed like some kind of magic spell for a jar. I think that’s enough for understanding.

There aren’t any direct inside references for friends in there. I can say that the film turned out to be quite nostalgic. As a kid, I loved watching Jackie Chan movies, that sort of comedy-action mix. You know, where everyone’s fighting, but it’s still fun. I drew some of the overall tone from that, because that’s what I liked when I was little.

I didn’t take any scenes directly, but a couple of times I played some films just to understand how it all works, what kind of shot it’s filmed in, how it all interacts. Jackie Chan also worked very actively with props. But still, I couldn’t achieve the same pace that existed in Chinese action films, simply because I was limited by the frame rate. My film isn’t 24 frames per second, but 12. So it wasn’t possible to show super-fast action, and everything ended up being a bit smoother than I would have liked.

Well, there’s a lot of anime in it. Specifically, the studio I like, now it’s Trigger, formerly Gainax. When the story picks up speed and the level of action rises, when the characters start flying, that’s when it reaches the anime level.

No, I don’t remember anything like that happening to me in computer clubs. But again, I just remember what the relationships were like in general between the older and the younger guys. Fights didn’t really happen often, the administrator kept an eye on that but the older ones weren’t very gentle when talking to the younger kids. They could send you to buy beer, or offer you a cigarette, something like that. Relationships were much simpler back then, so I wanted to convey a bit of that too.

The hardest thing was to resist the urge to redo everything during the process. When you work on something for a long time, you grow, and by the end of the film, it’s hard to look at what you made at the beginning.

Fortunately, 3D evens things out a bit. It’s not like traditional drawing, where by the end of a project you’ve improved so much that it’s painful to look at the first scenes. In 3D it’s easier, because the models stay the same. But still, I was learning 3D at that time, so by the end of the film I had more experience than at the start. It was hard not to want to redo everything. But I’m experienced enough, I just looked past a lot of things and kept telling myself that it’s better to finish the film than to keep fixing it endlessly.

I like the anime-style “flight” scenes, the dynamic camera, everything looks beautiful. But those are also the most annoying ones. The most frustrating scenes are the really long ones, where the camera doesn’t stop for 20 seconds and you have to make sure everything stays consistent during that time. The camera spins, the characters move actively through the scene, it’s complicated. Still, since it’s not live-action, it’s much easier than working with real actors.

Usually, some kind of visual image comes first. If I were to come up with something right now, I’d start with a visual hook and an idea, because we’re talking about animation. I think animation is still a visual art form, and it’s always interesting to find some little trick or hook in the story where the visual part also works as a storytelling tool. We communicate everything through technique, through the visual image we find. That’s very natural for animation.

There are two sides to that. On one hand, I made this film for myself, to at least have one film of my own. A personal one. Because in university I made two films, but they were very short, about 30 seconds each. I wanted to make one big, full-length film. So now I’m a director with a diploma and with a film. That’s it, closure achieved.

On the other hand, it’s for people my age, say, ten years older or five years younger. Maybe zoomers will get it, but I’m not sure. So it’s a film for nostalgic people aged roughly 25 to 35. Though nostalgia is a dangerous thing, I wouldn’t want to exploit it, but here the film itself dictated the terms, it didn’t ask me. I hope that in the future I’ll be able to make something on a more contemporary topic.

Overall, positive ones. So far I’ve only shown it to friends, and that kind of reaction should be taken with a grain of salt, because many of them will say “great job” just because they’re your friends. So I don’t have any truly objective reviews yet. Everyone I showed it to said, “Cool, funny.” And I get that, it’s an entertaining action film, a light little action piece, so the reaction is easygoing.

And honestly, I didn’t want a different kind of reaction anyway. Part of my artistic statement here is that an auteur expression in animation doesn’t have to look like an auteur expression. I mean, over time there’s formed this idea of what an “auteur animated film” is supposed to look like, made on brown craft paper and presented with a serious face. My position is that it doesn’t have to be like that. Films can be different, because an auteur film is, first of all, an author’s film. It allows for different techniques and approaches. It’s not very healthy when the same small industry circle gathers in Suzdal (Russian animation film festival) and only watches craft-paper animation.

I’ll see how it all turns out. Naturally, as an author, I’d love to hear, “Wow, this is great, we want more, here’s a billion rubles, just keep making films.” But that doesn’t happen often, and I don’t think it’ll happen to me. I’d call that the upper limit of success. For now, I’ll just go with what I have. If the film makes it to about ten festivals it would be great. Twenty — that’s a success.

Same with YouTube: if it gets ten thousand views, nice. A hundred thousand — great. A million — amazing, perfect. On the other hand, I don’t quite understand what the final goal is. Right now, I don’t have time to make another animated film. So when I release this one, what next? I have ideas, but no time yet.

So yes, I do have ideas, but to realize them I’ll need a lot of free time. For now, I’m not sure what direction to move in. The immediate goal is to go around the festival circuit and maybe collect some laurels. And if the film gets around a hundred thousand views, that would be great too. As a completely independent author, not tied to anyone, I’ll be super happy. Zero promotion, zero producing, it’s just me and my free time behind it.

Of course, I have ideas for pilots and short films, but I’m realistic about my chances. I’m already an old man, I’m thirty, after all. I’d probably think in the direction of short stories. Maybe reels would be okay. But I still need to get into the overall spirit of that space, that general chaos, and for now, that doesn’t come easily to me.