When we hear that a project will arrive bearing a script by Charlie Kaufman, our ears perk up. When we see that he’s part of a Kickstarter for an indie stop-motion film executive produced by Community creator Dan Harmon and regular collaborator Dino “Starburns” Stamatopoulos, that’s when the excitement really starts. So you can perhaps guess how we feel about Anomalisa.
Announced by Harmon on Twitter (and spotted by the watchful orbs of The Playlist), Anomalisa will be shot by the Stamatopoulos team, which has created both his shows Moral Orel and Mary Shelley’s Frankenhole and the stop-motion Community Christmas special. Drake Johnson, who has worked on both of the shows and directed the Community episode, is calling the shots.
As for the plot? Little has been released beyond the basic description that it's the story of a man crippled by the mundanity of his life. Given Kaufman’s penchant for unusual situations, stop-motion feels like his natural habitat.
So why the crowd-funding push on Kickstarter instead of raiding their little black books for studio contacts? Turns out, Kaufman, Harmon and team want to keep things pure. “Our goal is to produce this unique and beautiful film outside of the typical Hollywood studio system where we believe that you, the audience, would never be allowed to enjoy this brilliant work the way it was originally conceived,” reads the site’s statement. “We’ve been working in the television and movie industry for years and we just want to make something ourselves. Something pure. Something beautiful.”
The video announcement is below. If it succeeds in raising $200,000, the film is scheduled to be finished in May 2013.