Drawn By Pain

Drawn By Pain
Created by Jesse Cowell
Starring Marissa Parness
Elizabeth Plevy
Guy Rader
Michael Speer
Jack Perry
Sharon Hawk
Country of origin  United States
Original language(s) English
No. of episodes 12
Release
Original network The Escapist (magazine)

Drawn By Pain is a 12-part episodic internet series. It is about the spiral into one woman’s search for salvation as her animated madness fights for her sanity in the real world.

Plot/Summary

A little girl with an abusive father finds a creative outlet for her inner turmoil in personal drawings to escape the horrible reality of her domestic life. In his last fit of rage, her father kills her mother and then turns his attention to young Emily. The illustrations in her sketch book come to life in her defense. Fueled by her rage, Emily becomes her animated dark alter-ego and strikes out against her father, avenging her mother's unjust death. Consequently, Emily's adulthood is as broken as her childhood. A bitter and sheltered woman, Emily's past demons fuel, empower, and push her to be the very thing she once feared: a monster. Publicly quiet but privately vengeful, her animated beasts degenerate others into their ugliest forms. As soon as they become their worst, she destroys them as if were her personal responsibility.

But with this vengeance comes confusion. At first, Emily controls her animations. As her demons grow stronger, she can no longer stop the little girl inside of her from lashing out at the world. She quickly turns from predator to prey as new demonic beings, forged by her own strife-ridden mind, appear and begin to virulently pursue her. Emily struggles to reconcile her brutal past before the animated power triggered by her anguished inner psyche kills her and everyone around her.

Origin/Concept

From the very start, the Webby award winning 'Drawn by Pain' has been anything but conventional. With its unique amalgamation of animation and live-action, 'Drawn by Pain' has helped revolutionize the independent film scene by building its popular brand online before carrying the original storyline onto multiple platforms.

"I just did my best to tell a story that meant a lot to me," says director Jesse Cowell. "After having met so many young people online who were having trouble moving forward from issues stemming from their pasts, I decided it was time to tell the story of someone coming to terms with themselves; battling the troubles of old so they could live a better, less angst-ridden, tomorrow. 'Drawn by Pain' gave me a way to do that visually as we could actually see the inner workings of Emily's mind (represented by animated archetypes) fighting for control of her in the real world."

The project itself is an archetype which demonstrates the influence of online communities on autonomous filmmakers. Fans of the show were not only able to experience the film's message on a personal level, but also invited to take part in its production by acting as extras, contributing musical talents, and participating in grassroots marketing to help bring the director's vision to its full potential. Now completed, Cowell has turned the web-series into the form it was planned to be from the inset: a feature film soon to be released in many venues.

Characters

Cast and crew

Drawn by Pain: The Webseries

Episode Original Air Date Title
1 March 17, 2007 Emily Waters
2 March 17, 2007 Drawn By Pain
3 March 23, 2007 Not Entirely Alone
4 April 1, 2007 On A Mission
5 May 1, 2007 The Dissent of Emily
6 June 7, 2007 Emily Is Not Crazy
7 July 5, 2007 Only Safe In The Shadows
8 September 21, 2007 Enter At Your Own Risk
9 December 18, 2007 How Do You Fight The Enemy When You Are The Enemy?
10 February 4, 2008 See What You Fear
11 April 11, 2008 Step Into The Storm
12 August 26, 2008 What Goes Around Comes Around

Acclaim and Recognition

2007

2008

The Evolution of Drawn by Pain

2007

2008

2009

Director's Bio

Jesse Cowell grew up on the upper west side of Manhattan New York. As a child, when he wasn't being read to by his novelist mother or chasing fires and SWAT teams with his news photographer father, Jesse spent four days a week watching movies at his favorite neighborhood theatre. In the years that followed, Jesse followed his dream to Los Angeles to attend the University of Southern California's (USC) acclaimed Cinema School, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Cinema/Television Production. Along the way, he won several Cine Eagle awards and a student Emmy.

At this time, Cowell formed his own banner, Jeskid Productions, and mounted his first feature film, the highly irreverent comedy Shades of Gray which launched exclusively online in 2005. By releasing his film on the web, Cowell built up a very significant fan base and was even awarded the Audience Choice award for Best Director's Site by Movies.com. This led to Shades of Gray jumping to the big-screen as it was awarded Best Comedy Feature Film at the Microcinema Festival in Chicago that same year.

Throwing caution into the wind with the existing fan base 100 percent behind him, Cowell then mounted up with state-of-the-art HD equipment and began shooting what would be his most accomplished piece yet: the Webby Award winning Drawn by Pain. He took his creation and teamed up with cutting-edge animator Erica Langworthy while filming on the streets of New York. Cowell solely controlled the casting, scripting, shooting, directing, and editing aspects of the project, yet the series has the look, feel, and production quality of a thirty-man crew. Langworthy then creates her intense animation in sync with Jesse's unique vision. Drawn by Pain tells the story of Emily Waters, an eight-year-old girl who witnessed her father's brutality toward her mother, resulting in an ever-growing rage within her that manifests into the real world with vengeful anime characters.

Jesse Cowell continued with his career developing web content with a series called Status Kill, a Web Comedy. The series of videos is about a guy, Denton, who is obsessed with a social site called "Tweetfacester" (a parody of Twitter, Facebook and every other social network platform out there) and uses it to distract himself from the monotony of the workplace, as most of us do. The only thing is, his workplace is anything but monotonous; the guy’s a sniper.

References

External links

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