As reported on The Verge.
By Dante D’Orazio
An epic sci-fi movie featuring large-scale mech battles is an ambitious project for a small visual effects studio to take up on its free time. But that’s precisely what director J.J. Palomo and his team from Barcelona’s Big Lazy Robot have done with “Keloid.” Rather than output a full-length feature at direct-to-TV quality, the team spent over two years putting together this three minute “spec film.” It’s essentially a trailer for a movie that doesn’t exist, but it’s an impressive showing. As you might expect, the story isn’t clear — it seems a divided humanity comes together to fight off their own AI creations — but what matters at this point is the vision. In the clip, hulking, vivid mechs face off against strangely horrifying autonomous machines that quite resemble mannequins, and by the end of the three minutes we’re left wanting for more.
The concept art behind the clip comes from Aaron Beck, who also worked on District 9and Avatar, while Big Lazy Robot’s been involved in several projects in its short history, including a frankly wonderful Absolut vodka ad. The clip’s already garnered enough attention to get IAM Entertainment on board to look into producing it into a full-length feature, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Let’s hope it works out.