Background

Physical work started in early 2010 when I wanted a personal project that would allow full creative freedom outside of work hours. The original intention was to create a typical 'bad art student' animation, for example initially Mario didn't walk around he sort of floated while his leg bones flipped or his head would just randomly rotate 360 for no reason. However as time went by the project became more and more interesting, I felt what I was doing justified more time and love. Prior to working on this I was aware of the ridiculous amounts of Super Mario fan made animations/films out there but they all seemed to do the same tired setup such as place a gun into his hands and make him shoot people, one of the first rules I came up with was not to have any blood in the animation. Oh and also no mushroom/drug references.

Who is Graham Young?

I never wanted to put my own name to this and didn't plan on adding it to my portfolio. Still believe that if I planned it as a portfolio piece it would have turned out much different and wouldn't have been anywhere near as strange. Also none of the work, even the texturing is a representation of the quality of my 'real' work so I didn't want to put my name to it. It also tied in with the petermolyneux2 (fake twitter account of mine) viral campaign I used to 'market' the animation.

Ooooh so you hate Nintendo then?

Nope, I love Nintendo, Mario and the Wii and I think that clearly shows with all the various references going on (such as the Mario64 Intro screen reference during the torture scene). It's the reaction to the wii that really interests me and created some of the fuel to make this animation. It was made to make the community talk and argue, it worked. It seems everyone has their own drastically different views on what it means and I think as an artist that's one of the most rewarding responces you can have to your artwork. I do have my own personal view on it but feel it would ruin what I'm trying to do to explain that.