Mark Zamlinsky’s animated short, inspired by Stephen Vincent Benét’s poetry, about a North Georgian casino run by the devil, captures the ‘loneliness and ennui of being in a car, driving north on GA 400, escaping into fantasy.’
Adult Swim launched the Adult Swim SMALLS shorts program in 2018, with the goal of discovering new talent, new ideas, and presenting both to the public unfiltered. The program, helmed by Off the Air's Dave Hughes, showcases a variety of animated stories. Animator Mark Zamlinsky’s animated film Casino of Earthly Delights was among the first shorts released in the program's inaugural year; his film’s second segment, “Buford Lounge,” was added to the “Smalls” program in 2020.
Last month, the latest Casino of Earthly Delights version was released on Adult Swim SMALLS’ YouTube channel, wrapping the film’s previous parts into a 10-minute short.
The film tells the story of a casino in North Georgia that is run by the devil. It is loosely inspired by “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” a song written and recorded by the Charlie Daniels Band in 1979. The song itself is inspired by Stephen Vincent Benét’s poem, "The Mountain Whippoorwill," which was among Benét’s work Zamlinksy was reading while developing the film.
“It describes the hypnogogic character of the Metro Atlanta landscape, which prohibits you from getting anywhere without driving 30 minutes on lonesome highways,” shares Zamlinsky. “It captures the loneliness and ennui of being in a car, driving north on GA 400, escaping into fantasy.”
Zamlinsky created the first version of Casino of Earthly Delights in 2017 while at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). That was the one he pitched to Hughes, which he notes “was the first time I realized I can express my feelings through animation in a way I can't with words or still illustrations.”
The animation is primarily hand-drawn, created in Photoshop with a plug-in called AnimDessin. Some assets are created in Flash, and some hand-drawn on paper.
“I made it almost entirely by myself with some coloring assistance from friends and some background painting help from my mom, who is a talented illustrator,” explained Zamlinsky. “It’s comprised of four episodes. The first three were made without a script - storyboard first, straight ahead. For the fourth one, I finally wrote a screenplay.”
Watch and enjoy Casino of Earthly Delights:
Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.
