animated storytelling
superStory
animated storytelling
With your help, we want to fund the development and preview of our pilot episode.
THÉMIS - The Next Frontier is an ambitious SF animated series project freely inspired by the fabulous novel TITAN written by author John Varley.
THE PITCH
" A team of astronauts fails on a gigantic artificial world discovered off Saturn. They will have to survive in this strange and disproportionate universe to then go in search of the reasons for their shipwreck…"
PREVISUALIZATION
When producing animated contents, “previz” consists of making a low-cost version of the project (think at a 2000's videogame cinematic) but which already contains the essentials of the staging as well as artistic intentions. This process is widely used today in pre-production because it allows experimentation at lower cost while making future production more efficient.
THE PROJECT
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format: 6 episodes of 52 min
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animation technique: 3d / CGI
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genre: science fiction, adventure, exploration
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graphic style: realistic paint, cinematic
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total budget: millions 🙂
THÉMIS - The Next Frontier's story brings together all the ingredients to become a mind blowing series: unforgettable characters, epic adventures in spellbinding sets, unexpected twists, extraterrestrial encounters with the mysterious Titanides, and, in the background, nothing less than an inspiring questioning about the place of humankind in the universe.
We are not the first to try to adapt TITAN, this iconic work of SF from the 80s, and the challenge is daunting. But our approach through animation is the most relevant. John Varley's realism and sense of wonder make TITAN a perfect work for CGI animation.
The overall production of such a project represents several years of work for dozens of artists and technicians. We do not pretend to be able to take on such a production ! superStory specializes in previsualization and that's what we will provide.
THE PILOT
we want to produce in a first time the previz of our pilot episode.
STRETCH GOALS
€60,000 > Ignition!
The pilot program is funded. Champagne!
€120,000 >> Injection into orbit!
We'll be able to tackle the lookDev of this whole fabulous story and create the graphic bible!
€360,000 >>> Gravity assist maneuver!
We can develop and preview the entire series!
THE AUTHOR
Introduced in the early 80s by Isaac Asimov himself, John Varley made a lasting impression with his innovative stories, his realistic style coupled with his sense of wonder, as well as his genius for exploring identity and flesh. He received the prestigious Nebula and Hugo awards. His short story “In the Hall of the Martian Kings” is even part of the selection of cultural works on board the Martian probe Phoenix.
John Varley sadly passed away in December 2025. He leaves behind a masterful and humanist body of work.
With THÉMIS - The Next Frontier, we also want to pay tribute to its work by giving some artists the opportunity to express their vision of TITAN.
THE ARTISTS
Mathieu is a high skilled concept artist working for prestigious animation studios. He provided us some inspiring roughs to illustrate our campaign.
Reno is the talented illustrator and comic book author, who has notably revamped the famous Aquablue series. His style is a clever mix of manual and digital techniques. would be perfect for our project.
Manchu is a well-known science fiction illustrator. We owe him the iconic Odysseus from Ulysses 31, the fantastic spaceships from Once Upon a Time in Space, and a number of wonderful SF covers and illustrations.
Adrien is a fabulous young composer on the rise. His music fits perfectly with our production.
As previz maker, his dearest wish is to stage everything John Varley wrote. So let's start by the most ambitious ;-)