Fan-O-Rama: A Futurama Fan Film’s Planet Express Model

Indie studio Cinema Relics just released a neat 30-minute long Futurama fan film called Fan-O-Rama, which you can can check out at the bottom of this post. Director Dan Lanigan and his crew made the film using both live-action shots and stop-motion animation. The latter applies particularly to Old Bessie, the Planet Express delivery ship. Tested visited Cinema Relics’ set to find out more about the kickass Old Bessie model that they custom made for the film.

The model is based on the casts that prop maker Harrison Krix aka Volpin Props made to create limited edition replicas of the spaceship (you can buy Harrison’s 2D vector files of Old Bessie on his shop). Cinema Relics made a more realistic model of the ship to fit their film’s look and added lots of lights and weathering. They pointed out that using the model and stop-motion in general instead of CGI not only fits their project’s aesthetic but also makes it easier to get realistic lighting, which is still a tricky thing to do in computer animation even with today’s technology.