Able to do things.
I in fact, and I'm here with a lot of husband,
the director of Sky Motion Animation.
How you doing?
I'm doing great. Thanks for having me.
That's great.
We're talking about sky holiday today.
Can you break down the plot of this amazing movie?
okay.
So, Sky, she had a girl is about a anime character who becomes a real.
Falls out of her poster and goes missing from her anime.
And then she has to find her way home before her anime is destroyed
and everything goes haywire.
So that's the general
concept behind the film.
I mean, what a creative idea.
I love the idea that like literally she's missing from the animation.
People are worried about that.
Such a cooling back here. Yeah.
Where did you get the idea to incorporate this enemy story into live action?
Yeah, well, so I love anime and I had been watching a lot of it,
and when the time
came to make my next feature film, I was kicking around a bunch of ideas
and I just
I always thought I wanted to do something with kind of a magical element.
And I was like, I wonder, like if an anime character
fell out of their poster, like, what would happen?
And so that that's kind of where that idea started.
And, and I loved the concept of, you know, if anime
character fell out of their poster, then they became real.
They actually go missing from everything. They're not in a video game anymore.
They're not in the manga anymore, you know, they're not in the anime anymore.
So they go missing from all the posters everywhere.
So it's kind of a fun concept where in the movie
she goes missing from everything and then like,
you know, everybody who is used to watching the show
and reading the mug shots are like, Wait, she's missing.
Like these pages.
Like she's not on the pages anymore.
She's not an anime any more.
But she go, you know, So it's this whole thing.
But yeah, so that was those kind of inspiration behind it.
And it's it's been a wild ride.
It's been fun to make.
It's cool
because then also
the characters in the story are realizing that like, magic is real at the same time
when they're missing their characters, like, Wait, so this can happen?
It's such a cool concept.
Yeah, Yeah, totally.
What were your inspirations on the anime side of things and also on a
film side of things.
So for
film stuff, I take a lot of inspiration from the films that I watched growing up
and the things that made me want to be a filmmaker.
So like early, still big stuff, Jurassic Park, E.T.,
you know, and Robert Zemeckis, Back to the Future.
Who framed Roger Rabbit?
Like, you know, these great these great films, you know, Made by the Greats.
And those are the movie, of course, and Star Wars, you know, all these movies
that I fell in love with, that kind of take you into this magical world.
And you're like, I wonder what would happen
if that was real, you know?
Yeah. absolutely. Yeah.
So I think that E.T.
would be a great one for this story in particular where, you know, E.T.
is kind of like this, this alien that comes into this kid's life.
And in this movie, Scott Hoshi is the anime character
who falls into Adam, our lovable comic store worker, into his life.
He turns his life upside down and he's trying to figure out what's going on.
And so so I take a lot of that inspiration from,
you know, all of those movies I left growing up.
And then when it comes to anime, you know, I absolutely
love Adam.
Actually, we've been watching a lot recently.
I've been watching a lot of Spy Family great.
I've been watching Chainsaw Man So Good. yes.
I love shades of it, so good.
And then funny enough, but the anime that really inspired
just kind of the world of Sky Hoshi funny enough is Plunderer.
I don't know if anybody has.
I have mentioned this.
I've gone to a lot of anime conventions, as I've mentioned,
Plunderer, and nobody knows what Plunder is like.
I don't know why, but for whatever reason, it's, it's not really like, well known.
But I stumbled upon it and I started watching it and I was really confused.
I was like, What is this?
And I was like, I was so confused. What's going on?
So I saw the second episode and I was like, This is very interesting.
And then I watched the third episode,
and by the time I knew it, I had watched the whole season.
I was like, This is great.
Yeah.
So Plunder is fantastic, but if you ever see it is
is absolutely nothing like Kiyoshi in any way.
But there's this spirit of this big,
just magical world
that they've created where like there is, you know, well,
I don't want to spoil it if everybody goes, yeah, to watch it, but
basically there's just like tons of cool, like magical elements and legends
and all these things happening in the story.
And it just was so inspiring to me.
And so I ended up creating the Law of Sky.
Hoshi and I had to create where she came from because I wanted this movie
to very much be like, as if this anime had always existed.
And so,
so I used a lot of inspiration from all these anime to really create
Sky Hershey's World.
And so she's from the future New York City in the year 3001.
And so, you know, that's kind of like the basis of where she comes from.
So yeah, that's kind of all the inspiration.
For the movie. Yeah, that's. Great.
And then you're mixing this 3001 at Anime World
with the mundane world of Adam.
How, what are some of the themes it's trying to pull forward with that?
The mixing of the mundane and the magical.
Yeah, well, I think something that's very interesting
and something you'll see when you watch it,
like the movie has kind of a really sweet
message, you know, it is a really fun fantasy movie.
You know, there's lasers, romance, lot exotic comedy.
You know, it's it's got a lot going on.
But at the core, it really is about Sky,
The seeing the beauty of life because she's alive for the first time.
You know, she's usually a 2D animation, you know, but
she's alive and she's experiencing all these things that we take for granted.
Right.
So even the simplicity of eating like ramen or something,
it's like maybe we'll just eat food and not really not think much of it,
but this is her first time tasting ramen.
So she's like going crazy.
She's like, my God, like, it tastes so amazing, you know?
Or her first time seeing the New York City skyline or like,
all these wonderful things that we might just kind of
go about our day and not really think about the sky,
how she really treasures each moment because she's really experiencing it.
And so that's kind of the message behind the movie really, is to just
find the beauty in everyday life
and find the beauty in the things that are already in your life.
And so that was kind of this
beautiful thing where she turns his life upside down.
Yeah, but he also gets to show her the beauty
of the world around us and she really we get to see that through her eyes.
Yeah, What a beautiful message.
And really, it does sometimes take an outsider
to kind of give you the new perspective you need on something you see every day.
Yeah. Message.
Yeah.
Speaking of New York and conventions, you filmed a lot of this out of New York
and not a lot of this.
You filmed at a New York event and yeah, challenging was that.
my God.
So we filmed the movie at Anima NYC
and it was so fun and so chaotic because there's so many people there.
So but that was actually the very first day
of production, my very first day on set.
And it was really exciting because it was kind of like we got to debut
our original anime character to the anime community and this amazing
place.
And so that was a very,
very special moment for us because people were coming up to Sky.
I'd be like, my God, I love your cosplay. Who are you dressed as? You know?
And it was really validated validating for us to,
to experience that and be like, like here's a character that we love,
but to see all the people who love anime come around it and say,
This is awesome, like I can't wait to see the movie or I love your cosplay.
That was really exciting that they loved Sky Hoshi as much as we did.
And so that was really inspiring to be like, Okay, day one, like it's working,
this is great.
And then we actually did a tour over the summer
and we showed skyrocketed to a lot of fan expos and anime conventions.
And when we did that, it was just kind of welcomed with open arms.
Like everybody really, really loved it.
And so it was just like a really fun kind of full circle moment
where like the day one, we filmed that anime convention. Yes.
And then, you know,
we're releasing the film and showing it to people at anime convention.
And it was it was a cool moment, for sure. Yeah.
And seeing people's reactions, I watched your video of you
talking to a few people after the showing
and just reading people online, and it's been positive on every front.
It seems like people are really excited about this movie.
Yeah, yeah. It's been so wonderful.
You know, for me
as the writer director, I'm obviously making something that I love.
And, you know, you want to,
you know, as an artist, you want to create something that is true
to you and something that you love and something that resonates with you.
And you just hope that other people will like it, too.
And so and it's been just kind of a resounding,
you know, like a resounding
like how you know, like everybody everybody has absolutely loved the movie.
And that's been fantastic.
That has been striking a chord with a lot of people
and people have been really enjoying it.
So we've been getting a lot of good reviews, a lot of good messages.
We've been getting fan art like it's been really, really cool.
Yeah.
Now the convention scene, of course, is a lot of fun and stuff like that.
But also you have to work
with a lot of production and you're working with your magic.
Can you explain that relationship and pure magic to people who don't know?
Yeah, so me and my wife started a film studio.
It's just a little indie film studio.
It's called Pure Magic Pictures, and that's essentially
the studio that creates all of the movies that we make.
So and it's a very small team.
It's literally like me and my wife and just a couple other people, and
we go out and we make indie movies and we we make the stories
that we want to see and in the movies that we wish already existed.
But we're like, All right, well, let's go make something fun, you know? Yeah.
And so we're just any filmmakers making stuff and and then we have
obviously, we release all of our movies onto your magic pictures.
So if you go to like, pure magic Pinterest.com,
you can watch all the movies that we've created and
we're building like a pretty strong fan base on Instagram and on Discord.
And so that's been really cool.
So whatever we have like a new release, we do like a live digital premiere
where we gather all the fans together
and we all watch it together and it's a really fun moment.
But yeah, that's what pure magic picture said.
It's just like a small mom and pop movie shop making,
making movies, and I haven't thought about it.
Now with with the ability to control, with free magic and also the indie scene,
what are some of the boundaries you're excited to push that
maybe like Hollywood wouldn't let you push if you were in a big picture studio?
Yeah, I think it's just like being able
to get excited about an idea and then just go make it, you know?
There's just a lot of people, including myself, back in the day,
that would have a script
and wait around
and try to pitch it
around for a really long time and hope that somebody will say, Yes,
you can make this and give you permission to make it,
and then maybe they'll have some thoughts on your script.
You're like, You know what? Maybe you should add a talking dog.
You never like one dog.
You know. Maybe you should do this or that.
And so then they start kind of meddling with the idea and all sudden
it just kind of becomes it's something else, you know?
And so that's something that I absolutely love about pure magic pictures
is that, you know, all these movies are self-funded
and it's just literally me and my wife and a small team of us making stuff.
So if there's an idea that really inspires me or strikes a chord with me
that I'm really excited about, I'm able to kind of just like hit the ground
running and make it.
And so what you see is really just us making it,
you know, there's no studio or anything crazy behind it.
It's literally just us with like, you know, a small team
and having fun and making art and and that always that never really sat
right with me as an artist and as a filmmaker
that you spend a lot of your
time like hoping that somebody will give you permission to do your thing.
You know, I'm like,
like we want to make stuff for artists, you know, like if I I'm also a musician.
And so if I had to ask permission and every time I wrote a song, you know,
that would be really depressing, you know, or like that feel really hard.
And so, you know, we just work within our means.
And when you see sky hockey,
it seems really big and exciting and it is.
But we were really strategic because you have to be when it's an indie movie.
So we literally filmed inside of my apartment like,
so my apartment is Adam's apartment and the movie we filmed in my car.
My car is one of the characters car.
In the movie
we have a friend who owns a comic store, so we filmed in their comic store.
Yeah. And then anime NYC. We filmed there.
We filmed on the streets in New York.
So, you know,
we really were like very strategic with our locations because, you know,
you don't have a lot of budget to work with.
So you end up with the freedom to, to make a story that you really care about.
And so yeah, that's something that I'm very excited about
and something that I really cherish
about the position that we're in being such, such a small studio.
Yeah, I actually kind of like the way it leans into the name as well.
Pure magic. It's like from inspiration.
Then you get the product without any of the input from outside or budget or,
or money.
It's just like, this is the pure magic that I had wanted to see.
And here it is. It's a love. That.
I love that. Yeah.
Let's talk about more of us Guy Hoshi.
Now we have Adam and Scott who she herself What is Skye?
Who? She's motives.
Is she trying to get back to the inner world, or is she having so much fun?
She's kind of enjoying our world.
Yeah.
So she is kind of a little bit of
like a fish out of water in the beginning of the movie.
She's just kind of like, What happened? How did I get here?
And so we find out that Adam
had he found a jar of stars and he made a wish on them.
And so that kind of makes her fall out of the poster.
And so they realize that
the jar a star is essentially is a countdown.
The amount of the amount of stars that are in the jar is the amount of days
she has here.
And so now she has to
figure out how to get back to her enemy before the time runs out.
And so she does enjoy her time while she's here.
But it's a little bit of like a ticking clock situation and where they're like,
okay, like, let's get down to business.
Like, let's get you home, you know?
But there is some some moments where they get to kind of
like hang out for a second and enjoy the time that they do have.
And so, yeah, it's a little bit of like a ticking clock situation.
Never with me. Yeah. Yeah.
And then for Adam, whose world is turned upside down,
was there any inspiration from like maybe a character in your life?
Are you playing Adam in a way? Is anything like that going on?
yeah.
I think I took a lot of like Adam was this great collaboration between me
and the actor who played him Hunter.
Hunter is he's fantastic.
And so I originally, when I wrote Adam, he was a little bit
more of like a marty McFly inspired character.
And so, you know, that's kind of where it started.
There's a little bit of me inside of every character that I write. Yes.
Which is always fun.
And so, you know, there is a me
definitely in Adam, but
and and in Skye as well.
You know, her there, her her childlike wonder.
Yeah, there's probably a little bit I mean.
Her love for romance as well.
But for Adam, you know, it was very much a collaboration
and I thought that was kind of a fun take on his character.
So I had written it
and he was supposed to be a little bit more like a marty McFly style character.
But when when Hunter started reading the script
and we started talking about his character, he's like, I help.
I want to do a little bit more of like a quirky take on him.
And I was like, Yeah, let's try it.
And so
so it was kind of like this cool blend between
the character I had originally intended
and the character that he had a cool idea for.
And it actually landed in this really cool spot where I think that it's
just kind of like this great synergy moment where like
both of our ideas combined created this like really cool, unique character.
And I wouldn't have necessarily off the top of my head like written,
but I think it's like it elevated the movie so much
and I think it added so much to it.
And so, yeah, he's, he's really supposed to be kind of like the little bit of like
a little bit of a slacker style character who works at a comic store, you know?
And, you know, he doesn't he hasn't changed, you know,
he's kind of like kind of a boring guy, but he doesn't realize it.
And then throughout the movie, you know, Skye
teaches him and shows him like the beauty of life.
And at the end of it, he ends up being a little bit
more exciting and steps out a little bit more out of his comfort.
Slowly. Yeah, Yeah.
Much like Hunter, how often are you trying to stick to the script,
or are you kind of working with the actors to discover a new character?
Yeah, I think it kind of depends on the character, but I think, you know,
when I when I work with my actors, you know, it really is a collaboration.
You know, I have an idea of, of what the I had written
and what the script calls for, but also because I'm the writer and the director,
I think that it it does bring this kind of like great
blend where I'm always
kind of writing, rewriting the script throughout the whole process, Right?
Yeah.
So we always try to stay the script, but if something inspires
us, we're going to like lean into it, you know, and change stuff
all the way through, you know?
And so even working with Olivia, she had some fantastic ideas for her character.
Yeah.
And so she really brought Skye to life in such a great way.
And so, you know, I had kind of the basis of what Sky was,
but Olivia came in and really elevated
that character beyond anything I could have imagined.
So she really did a fantastic job from like, her mannerisms.
She had some really great like,
she has this scholarship that she does when she, like, draws her laser.
Like, you know, Olivia came up with all of that.
That was all her. Yeah. And I love the sky.
How she plays a gun pose or and it was a cool balance that we had to strike.
And I think Olivia did a fantastic job because as an anime character,
you know, anime is very, like, exaggerated, you know?
But we
wanted to have like an what if an anime character became real?
Well, you know, there's this line where they would be exaggerated, but,
you know, they're not like a cartoon anymore or,
you know, they're not like this animation anymore.
And so we had to strike this balance between we wanted her
to feel grounded in reality, believable, but also still an anime character.
And so that's kind of like a tough one to do.
But I think Olivia, like she she now that she did a fantastic job.
So yeah, so it really is a great collaboration all across the board.
I've seen I've seen her talk about it a few times and you could tell
she really enjoyed playing the role and I think that's
a testament to you, pure magic and just the film in general.
So thank you. Yeah, yeah, she did fantastic.
She really brought Sky, Ocean to life in a way that yeah, I couldn't even imagine.
So yeah, let it go, let it
be. Actually, this is really topical at this point is the adaptations of animate.
We have Avatar, The Last Airbender that recently came out one piece before that.
Is there something you're recognizing in anime adaptations that can be done
a little bit better or is something that is actually being mastered now?
Yeah, I think something that I, I, I have not.
It's something that I think is kind of exciting about
Kiyoshi
is that we did it a little differently.
We created
the live action version of Sky actually first.
Yeah.
And then we went
and we created the animated version of Sky actually based off the live action.
And so like, so obviously her anime
version and her look very similar because it was based out of her.
So I, I think the thing that's always kind of difficult is when you
adapt an anime, you're kind of used to hearing that anime
characters voice
and you're
used to seeing what they look like, but that is not actually a real person,
you know, that's, that's, that's a, that's an anime drawing.
And so, so it's always hard to find a character that works
like as close as you can to the anime
character and also maybe even sounds in their voice
a little bit closer to the anime character.
So that's always kind of hard.
And so I think something that I found really exciting
is that like Sky Hoshi matches the anime version of Sky, honestly,
because it's pretty much the same person. Yeah.
And so that that was kind of cool and I feel like pretty unique,
but you don't really get to see that often.
But I had watched recently
the Cowboy Bebop adaptation, right?
Right.
Yeah.
And I, I thought I was actually I was like, okay, I see what they're doing.
Like, I wasn't like a huge fan of it.
Like, I think that it could have been, I think better.
But I did I did see some really cool things.
I think their, their casting choices were great.
I love the casting for Spike and Jet.
Like, I think they really nailed Spike and Jett
and I think the first couple episodes were actually pretty good.
But then I feel like it slowly got kind of worse.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It feels like maybe Netflix had a little bit too much input on that, you know?
So I was like, okay, I can see where you guys are losing footing on this.
Yeah. Did you ever watch that one or.
I didn't finish that one, which is the bad sign.
Yeah, I got to the last step. I all the way.
It got all the way to the last episode and then I was like, Yeah, I was over it.
And then like literally a couple of weeks ago, I was like,
I just finished the last episode so I can at least, like, say, I finished this.
And so I watched it.
It was painful because. Homework at that point.
It was homework.
Yeah.
I hate to be one of those guys who always says is, but New Yorkers,
it's own character and.
totally. Yeah.
And then this is definitely is what what about New York to do what I know
obviously it's like, wow, if I'm animated New York.
Yeah.
Did you use New York as a character in this?
Yeah.
So, I mean, I just love New York City.
Yeah. Yeah.
I moved here like, nine years ago, and, you know, it's still like this
magical place to me, you know,
I didn't grow up here, so, like, everything is like, cool.
I love it.
Barry Yeah, it's very sky of you.
Yeah, I'm very much sky Hershey when it comes to New York City, I'm like.
wow, look, it's cool.
I'm like. I've been here for like nine years.
I still think it's the magical.
But yeah, so it really is its own character.
You know, I think New York is this beautiful place where, you know,
it's the city kind of does have its own, like personality and magic to it.
Yeah.
And I think like what it what a perfect place for
guy Hershey to fall into And so I think and you know
her animation is from the year 3001 of New York City
and so I just thought it was kind of cool to take her around the city
a little bit and experience that because it's it is its own character
and it's got its own magic to it for sure.
And it's it's like it's living and breathing so much.
And even on screen you really feel
even if it's like in the apartment, you just know around or a million stories
around that person and you're just hoping to get a little slice.
Exactly. Yeah.
Lastly, let's
talk about the effects before we get on to getting people to the right direction.
We have a laser gun that I got to say, looks fantastic.
How hard is it to make you?
you know what?
Funny enough, I have a funny story.
So the laser gun.
So I did all the visual effects myself. Really?
Because small studio indie over here.
Yeah. I've got to do it. You got to do.
In my previous life, I did visual effects for, like, commercials and stuff.
So it really it helps that I'm able to bring that skill set into this.
And so, yes, the laser gun, it looks really cool.
I'm really happy with the way it looks.
And it's so funny because it really was not that hard of an effect for me.
And the funny thing is,
the hardest part about this
entire movie was I had to
greenscreen and a poster on the wall of the comic store, which sounds so simple.
Yeah, it sounds like. Yeah, it's got a poster on the wall.
What are you talking about?
Like, you would think a laser guy would be, like, the hard part, right?
But literally, it took me so long.
It took me hours and hours to put the poster on the wall.
I was like, Lives is taken because it allowed.
There's so many shots of this poster.
But what basically would have happened is we filmed
the movie before we had the anime version of Sky Hoshi complete it.
And so yeah.
So when we filmed the movie,
we just had a green poster on the wall where her poster will be later. Now.
And so we filmed the whole movie, all that good stuff.
We get the anime artwork, this is great.
And then I go to replace it and I just ran into like every single,
like expert level thing where I'm like, This was not simple at all.
Like.
Like the motion tracking was a little harder than normal and like,
the lighting was a little more difficult than normal.
And like, just go down the list of, like, weird issues I had with it.
So kind of funny. Long story short, yeah.
Just dealing with that
green poster on the wall and replacing it with Sky Joshi's actual poster.
It was just like, so difficult for like something that you could have
just, you know, if you did it a little differently,
you just pretty poster and just like taped to the wall.
For the sequel. That will be one part that will be much easier.
You already got the posters ready to go. Yes.
That is something I am doing for the sequel.
I am not filming any green screens on walls.
I'm just just printing posters.
The making of the sequel production is starting soon.
Yeah. You excited for that?
my God, I'm so excited for that.
Yeah, I you know, it was I missed having all these characters together,
and I just recently read through the script with.
With Olivia and Regina and Stephanie.
And, you know, for people who don't know Olivia Place I Hershey,
Regina plays Kira, who is a bass player in the band The Brown Candies.
And then Stephanie is my wife who is producing the film.
So anyways, we are sat together and like read the script and it was just
such a great moment for us because we were just so excited
reading it all together and it felt like
we're getting the band back together, you know, like it was great.
So this guy Hershey Story is supposed to be a trilogy
and something that I'm very excited about is I'm kind of taking inspiration from
like the Star Wars trilogy, the original,
where, you know, Empire Strikes Back that's a little bit darker.
Yes. Angelina. Regina.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
And then, you know.
It's a little bit more of a bummer.
You know, have a movie.
But then, you know, the third one goes like, you know, big,
big happy ending type of thing.
Yeah.
And so that's kind of like my format for this trilogy.
And so I'm very excited to do that.
And so this movie very much is like the middle movie.
And so that's very exciting for me
because the, the second movie is always my favorite in the trilogy.
Like when you look at Back to the Future, the second one is my favorite.
Actually. That's a really good point.
The second one is technically a lot better to like filming wise.
Like that was hard for them to do. Yeah.
my God, yes.
There are so many effects and is not.
Yeah. Yeah.
Accent future Second last.
My favorite Star Wars.
The second one's my favorite.
Yeah. And so yeah.
So like when I think back like to some of my favorite trilogies,
like the second one usually is my favorite
because that's where you can kind of spend more time in the world,
you know, and you can get a lot deeper into the story.
A lot more goes on.
And then, you know, the third one, you got to wrap it all up.
So it's like there's a lot of wrapping up to do.
It's a lot of goodbyes. A lot of. Goodbyes.
So the second one really is, you know, I'm very excited about.
Yeah.
So, yeah, we're planning on starting production
just in a couple of months and so we got to get more laser guns.
We have we have different weapons
or more weapons on this movie, which I'm excited to play with.
A lot more fight scenes in this movie and it doesn't like fun fight choreography.
So it'll be a fun movie.
It's going to be a lot more action, but still like it's still very much Sky.
So she just kind of cranked up a couple notches.
Yeah, that's great.
Where can people follow along if they want to see some behind the scenes on this?
Yeah.
So you can follow us on Instagram at dramatic pictures.
And so we post all sorts of stuff there from Scott Hershey
and all the other projects we're working on.
And yeah, or you can just go to our website
Pure Magic Pictures dot com and you can watch Sky Hershey it's, it's out now
so you can check it out the first one so you're in the know the sequel
and yeah if you want to follow along with me and what I'm doing you know
writing, directing, playing, you know Zelda you.
Can you can follow me.
And I'm just at KILLARNEY Hubbard on Instagram.
But yeah. Perfect links to everything, guys.
And again, I'll put the trailers the first link guys you go watch.
I hope you get hooked and then watch the full movie over Pure Magic.
We'll have everything there.
You can rent it or buy it, or even the Blu ray.
So check that out, guys. There is a Blu ray.
It has over four and a half hours of special features.
This is really cool, but we got a lot on there.
It was fun to make. This look cool.
Yeah, well, I really appreciate you hanging out with me today.
Yeah. Thanks so much, man.
This has been fun. Yeah.
All right, guys. Well, thank you very much.
Again, go to the links in the description.
Start cooking around and we'll see you guys next week. My.