...[Director Michael] Corrente and the three-man team from The Story Hat, based on Weybosset Street in Providence, will begin preproduction this week on a computer-animated horror film called Bloodline, which tells the story of tattoos that grow and change and wreak havoc on their bearers....They envision a broad national release, and a genre-making movie, one that would also put Rhode Island on the map as an animation headquarters. They estimate that the film’s production would employ close to 200 people when it is running full-tilt.

...The Story Hat is the creation of three former Hasbro employees — Kevin Mowrer, Rob Travalino and Anthony Lucci — who worked in various roles on some of the Pawtucket toy company’s most iconic properties, such as the GI Joe and Transformers cartoons, and on Hasbro-related movies such as Men in Black...

...The Bloodline project was born last year over coffee at Tazza Café downtown. Corrente had just met the Story Hat team, and he was in the midst of planning his ScareRI project, in which he plans to produce 10 horror movies locally for $1 million each...Corrente initially intended the film to be part of his ScareRI project, but he soon realized that it was far too ambitious and would require a larger budget. He said he would make an announcement on the status of that project in the coming weeks...

...Corrente and the Story Hat team would not say exactly how much they would spend — allowing only that Bloodline would cost somewhere between $1 million and $40 million. Corrente said that financing will come from a combination of private equity backing and loans, as he has done for most of his films....

Mowrer said that some of the savings will come from having RISD’s help, but some will come from using new kinds of software and animation techniques...

...The RISD connection will help keep production costs on the film low, but will also give the film access to talented illustration students — and perhaps more importantly, illustration professors. The three-month class starts Wednesday, and the Story Hat team will be regularly involved...

...“Almost 100 percent of [RISD’s] animation students have to leave the state when they graduate. When we get this up and running, that will change very quickly.”...