Some more images 'n' stuff

Hi Peoples!


Time for some more inspiration me thinks!


After writing Chapter I Parts IV and V this morning, I went on an image hunt on good old google, just to see if there was anything out there that looked even similar to what I have in my head, and low and behold, there is!


Result!


It's so much easier to show concept artists what you are thinking of, than to try to explain it in words.


First up, the towers of the city (that has no name as yet, answers and ideas please).
In the story they are described as having terraces, not something you normally associate with high-rise buildings, and not really something that is easy to design, you invariably end up going down the route of bits jutting out here and there, or something that looks like paddy fields.


But, architects herzog de meuron have been designing just such buildings, and even better for Gift, the have an open design that allows for a whole load of modification.


Here's a collection of images of their designs;

Also appearing in the chapter was a speedster that Anjali raced in the Skyway.

A really quick google image search for speedster soon brought up the Auburn 852 Speedster, a rather glorious looking machine, and one that could be quite easily modified to fly I feel, with it's sweeping curves and long snout!

And finally, when I'm doing almost any work of any sort, be it writing, designing or my VFx work, I almost always listen to music. For writing, I find that listening to certain tracks almost sets the mood for the story as it comes out of my finger tips. And for Gift there seems to be certain film soundtracks that set just the right scene, with the right amount of foreboding in the tracks, although you the readers don't know just what that foreboding is as yet, and truth be told, neither do I entirely.

I digress, the music!

It's the Batman sound tracks, from Batman Begins and Dark Knight. So whilst you are reading the chapters, try listening to those sound tracks at the same time, you can find them on Spotify.

Time for me to sign off for now!

Cheers

Steve

Chapter I Part V

Chapter I Part V

Ashmita was already here, though that was no surprise really, Anjali suspected that he used the workshop as an escape as much as she did. She looked at the big guy, he was almost half cyborg now, his robotic arm and leg replacing the flesh and bone he used to have. He never told her how he lost them, it seemed the memory was too painful, but from the tattoo on his other arm, she knew he was in the forces, the Icon of the Makarium showed that, and the winged sword showed that he was a Navy Marine, the toughest of the tough. The Marines were not to be messed with. He was a private man though, Anjali had learnt that throughout her short life time, if Ashmati wanted you to know something, then he would tell you. Although he was a big man, with a sort of deep, soft but somehow commanding voice, he was never anything less than fair and gentle with Anjali, he kept her on the straight and narrow from time to time, with just a word or two in her ear, and she had the greatest of respect for him because of it. He never lectured her like her mother did, just told her want was what when she needed to know. The rest of the time he just got on with his work, and tinkering with his Mono.

“What's the problem Big Guy?”
“It's the engine output, it's not enough for these new mod's I've made, can up it by about 50 amps?”
“Sure, let me in there, let's see what we can see!”

The Mono, how to describe it?
It was as big and as mechanical as Ashmita himself was. It was old-tech, it's massive single wheel bigger than most men, at 7 foot high and about 3 foot wide. The deep tread made for the mud, snow and semi-frost of the world, although Anjali couldn't remember the last time it had left the warmth of the workshop.
Ashmita had installed some of the latest beam communicators on it's main console, and so needed some extra output for it's hulking engine.

“It should just be a simple case of upping the HP and directing it to the coils” she stated.
“Ok, well do what you have to please. I need to go up to the loft to finish some things off for your father.”

Her eye's followed Ashmita up the stairs to the loft, the area of the workshop that served as clerical office and cleanroom for the electronics needed to service most hover crafts these days. That was Ashmati's speciality, electrics and electronics, give him some semi conductors, and some copper, and he could make you just about anything, he was always reading the latest white papers to come from the Universities, that was one of the lessons he wished Anjali would listen to, that you can never have too much knowledge, it was the greatest weapon of all.

Anjali looked about the workshop for the tools for the job she needed to do, and there in the other corner, hidden unerneith a canopy was her dad's labor of love, he had designed and build a hovercraft of his own, instead of just repairing everyone elses.

“And don't you even think about looking under that tarpaulin young lady, you know it's your Father's pride and joy”

Damm! Sometimes she was sure that Ashmita could read her thoughts. She tried to picture what the craft looked like from the shapes made under the canopy, it had to be a speedster, she was sure of it, just from the shape, but it was so much bigger than any personal speedster that she knew of, it was sleek though.

Chapter I Part IV

Chapter I Part IV

The trip to the workshop was as uneventful as ever, at this time of night both the highways and skyways were pretty clear, which in fact meant that traffic was flowing and not bumper to bumper.

Also at this time of night the Leviathans usually did their manoeuvring, to and from the various types of docks to load up with whatever they needed for their next journey to wherever it was they went to, they seemed to rarely come back. Although Anjali took very little notice of them, the Leviathans did come back, just not in the same state they left in, they almost always needed a refit, though that in turn meant there was always work in the navel yards.

Anjali's favourite part of the trip to the workshop was always up on the skyways, at this time of night she could zip in and out of the traffic, going left and right, over and under, any transports that she came across. Every now and again she might come across something a bit faster than the normal run of the mill p-trans (personal transports), tugs and heavies (heavy transports), and tonight she found herself racing a nice looking low-slung speedster. The driver obviously relished having some freedom to open up his throttle on the skyway, although it wasn't clear if he was actually racing Anjali, or just trying to get rid of the annoying little scooter on his tail. Anjali didn't care, it was fun just tailing the guy for a bit, speeding around the middle and upper terraces of the city. Pretty soon though she had to head back down to ground level, onto the slow moving highways, but only for a short time. Taking the next exit, Anjali took the feed even further down to street level. Down here was almost always devoid of much mechanical traffic, it was all people, and rubbish. Going was even slower down here, but she only had a short distance to go to her Dad's workshop.

As she approached, pressing the button on her handle bar to open the door, Anjali momentarily looked up. It was when she was down here that the city felt so oppressive. That was what made her feel so small, and fuelled her desire to escape. At street level there seemed to be a spaghetti of cables criss-crossing from one building to another, usually with some sort of rubbish caught up in the web or wires, that alone blocked out most of the natural light, but beyond the web were the towers. Each one a mini city in it's own right. At the street level were the slums, workshops, and infrastructure needed for each tower to work, the lungs, heating systems and waste units for the higher levels. Then as you went higher up the tower, each terrace had it's own class of stores and housing, first the black collar workers, then blue, and so on until you got to the very top level, the penthouses of the officers, teachers and preachers of the Makarium. As a whole they were known as the Makariatte, and they saved the best for themselves, after all they were the keepers and protectors of the general population.

But down here, in the Trough, life was a million miles away from those lofty heights. The streets were fogged with both the cold air, and steam from vents in the buildings and the streets. The steam was a necessary evil, it was what kept the place warm, but it was also the source of the fogs. The fog made the streetlights seem to glow, and the ever present Vidiverts for the Makarium and the Forces, they were everywhere. The only other source of light down here came from the buildings themselves, either the street signs for the workshops and mechanics, or from the higher heights, as though it were some sort of artificial day light. Every now and again though, a chink of real light from the Sun would sneak past the buildings, the cables and rubbish, even out shine the Vidiverts, and show the Trough in a new light, even though it lit up all the grim detail, it seemed to make it a little more bearable, a little more human.

Just outside her Dads workshop was one of those spots where real daylight could break through, but not at the moment, it was dusk, and the glowing city was silhouetted against the glow of fog and mist.

As the door to the work shop slowly slid itself open the warm glow of the interior lights drew Anjali's attention, and she was back somewhere safe, somewhere she felt important and normal again.

“Hello Anjali! I am glad you are here, I need your help!”

Chapter I Part III

Chapter I Part III

Anjali really didn’t want an argument with her mother, not tonight, but couldn’t she just do what she wanted to do, it was a free world after all wasn’t it?

Whenever she wanted to do her thing, her mother would go on at her about greater responsibility, about how what she does now will affect her future, about how she should be thinking about this and that, when really all Anjali wanted to think about was engines, and how to escape this life of course, same as every kid her age. Some wanted to go off and join the forces, well in fact most wanted to go off and join the forces, it was just what you did.

Though these days there were a few kids who were thinking that maybe that wasn’t what they wanted to do. Why should they go off and fight in The War, what would they get out of it? No, much more interesting was engines, at least with them Anjali could make something tangible, something more real, something that was actually useful. Which brought her back to going down to her Dad’s workshop and helping Ashmita with his Mono, as old technology as it was, she could do some pretty cool stuff with it, and Ashmita was always tinkering about with it, finding ways to improve the performance of electronics and weapons, he didn’t care too much to the mechanics of the engine.

The thought of getting down to the workshop snapped her back out of thoughts just in time to hear her mother drone on about how “... it was a privilege and a duty to fight for the Makarium in The War …”. Often her mother would seem to switch to automatic mouth pilot and just seem to spout Makarium rhetoric, she even used the same phrases as the Political Posts, so Anjali had found a defense against it, she just zoned out into her thoughts.
Tonight though, she just wanted to get to that workshop, so simply agreed with anything her mother said. That served two purposes, firstly, it reduced the amount of time she had to listen to her mother's drivel, and secondly, almost as an after effect, it gave her mother the illusion that she was actually getting through to her daughter.

Just half an hour later and Anjali was on her hov-scooter on her way to the workshop. Ashmita was already there, and he’d messaged her to ask her for her help, the Mono wasn’t putting out enough power for his latest upgrades.

Chapter I Part II

Chapter I part II

The Makarium, Anjali’s mother worked for them, nothing important, though she liked to think she was, but because of that one simple fact, she was the voice of reason and logic in the house.
Jananii, Anjalis’ mother, is what you might call straight, she does everything by the book, from her work, to the way the house is kept, to the way that Anjali should be brought up, to the letter of the law.
Once upon a time she was more like Janaka, a bit more relaxed and carefree, but since she started to work for the Makarium, she became quite a different person, watching how she looked, what she did, and most of all what she said. In her youth she heard, said, and did things that today would lose her job, or maybe even worse. But, she is a loving mother, and a loving partner to Janaka, when he’s not being too loose with his tongue. Most of all, she wanted Anjali to grow up safe and well, and hopfully not to listen to her fathers tales too closely, she knew the truth behind them, and didn’t want Anjali finding out, or at least not just yet, maybe when she was older, more mature, more equiped to understand the implications of knowing such things, and the sense to react in the correct manner. A manner that the Makarium would approve of.

“What is for dinner Mum? Can I take it to the workshop? I want to help  Ashmita with his mono-wheel. Such an old engine, it’d be fun to see how it works! Though I don’t get why he uses such old stuff, hover bikes work so much better, I think anyway”

“Oh Anjali! Can’t you just forget about those stupid engines for once?

A bit about Production Design

Hi Peoples!

So, along the years that I've had the initial ideas for this, the way I envision it looking has changed more often that I'd like to admit.
Originally the design ethos I had was pure fantasy, but having worked on basically fantasy films for the last 4 years, in one form or another, be it mythological heros, boy wizards, or beasts of some sort, I've just about had a belly full of fantasy.
Add to that the fact that my first "love" in film is SF, I even studied it at school for 2 years, I have decided to go down a more SF route.
But also, I really don't want to do what's been done before, and am still trying to tie down the specifics for the design style of the film.
However, what I do have is a bunch of influences that I like to draw upon, some of which you could guess about from some of the artworks I have posted on before.

First of all, the design styles. It's going to be some sort of mash-up of the various punks, Diesel-Punk, Cyber-Punk, a bit of Steam-Punk, but with design influences from the 20's and 30's, between the wars.
But then, mix into that some more SF type influences, but also some more mundane design styles that you might see today, and you'd be close to what the sort of thing I'd like to see on screen.

Now, just to mess things up even more, the design ethos, the depth of design has to be as deep as films such as Blade Runner and the Lord of the Rings films. The only way to convince the viewer that they really are in a different world, a different time, is to design that world. All of it, even the bits you might not even see, only with such depth of design can this world become more than just an idea on a page, and become totally immersive.

Easy thing to say though, not quite so easy to achieve, but it is very very early days, and as I write the story, I'll have a whole bunch of ideas about the backgrounds to pretty well everything in the story, even a mundane toaster has a story, a life, as an inanimate object, and the design has to show that it is a toaster, that could well be used every single day, it might have a loose time knob, because everyone likes their toast done differently, will effect the look. It's that level of design that I'll be looking for.

So, whilst I'm rambling on about the design, maybe now would be a good point to ask if there are any concept designers out there that would like to take on this challenge, just for the challenge sake at the moment, if so, drop me a line.

Anyway, it's starting to get late here, so time for me to sign off for now.
Keep an eye out for the next little bit of the story sometime this week.

Hope you all are having a fun time!
Drop by again soon, and please please, let me know your thoughts!

Cheers for now!
Steve

Who is Anjali? (Slight spoiler alert)

So who is Anjali?

Well, here is my initial character notes for her, tho I've yet to give her a fuller backstory.

Working class, but knows there's something different about them, just not sure what, this can be part of the journey. 

Their ancestors maybe originally “killed” off the Great Enemy, and were vilified by the ruling class for doing so, and hence putting their way of life at risk.
Also, just coming of age, and dealing with all that entails, roughly 14 to 16 (human) years old. Puberty is in full swing!

My good friend, Silvia, is doing some concept sketches, but I'm just wondering what you all think?

What do you think she looks like?

What's her personality going to be like, what sort of person is she?

I'd be thrilled to hear your ideas, even from the little bits of info I've given.

C Ya all soon!

Steve

Chapter I Part I

Home

The city is as it always had been in her memory.

Big!

Not just big like a hover-pickup compared to her scooter, but big like a Leviathan compared to a Personal Transport. So big that she only ever felt like a tiny speck, like the smallest organism in a massive ocean, not that she had ever seen the ocean, but she had an idea how big it would be. So what better way to avoid the size of everything other than …

“Anjali, come and get your dinner will you!”

… other than to lose yourself in something not quite so big.

“For goodness sake, leave that infernal engine alone, get washed, and come and eat will you girl!”

Engines. Anjali loved engines, something she inherited from her father, who was still in the workshop tinkering with something or other, much to her mothers annoyance.

“The thing with engines … “, her father used to say,
“ … is that you know exactly where you are with them. If something goes wrong, you pull it apart, fix the broken bit, and put it back together again, and everything's just fine. But then, you can tinker with them, make them better, make them more than they were, and that is just so exciting and rewarding!”

Yanaka does tend to get a bit carried away by engines, much to Anjalis’ mothers annoyance. Engines and tales of old, that just about summed up her father.
He always painted such pictures of the olden days, of when his Grandad was alive, tales that were full of mystery and intregue, tales that the Makarium would call heritical today.
Most of the time Anjali took the stories to be just that, stories that her father used to make up to send her off to sleep with when she was little, although she did sometimes wonder if they were really made up or not. These days her mothers voice of reason held more sway with her, and her fathers tales were just that, tales, and he usually only told them now after a few glasses of Lahjee too many, usually with much gusto and performance, and with Anjali’s mother telling him to be quiet and forget about old tales, there were more important things to worry about.

Prologue

There is a race, my race, a people with just one purpose, one “religion”, to fight!

To fight is not our natural way, but a life we have had to learn and embrace as a way of survival.

Through the mists of time and legend we know of The Great Enemy, we learn about it when we can barely talk, our fathers teach us the way of it, and we want only to be free of this enemy once and for all, so we can live a life of freedom and frivolity, enjoying the finer things of life, as our race once did.

There is a race, my race, and I would die trying to free it!

Artwork Links

Hey Peoples!

Thought I'd post the links of the artists who's artwork I posted, 'tis the right thing to do, and I love their work too!

The Master; Ian McQue; http://mcqueconcept.blogspot.co.uk/
I've long been a fan of this guys work, especially his flying boats! I first cam across his work when I was trying to design some flying boats of my own, needless to say he's far better at it than I am!

The Dark Artist, Borkur Eiriksson ; http://www.borkurart.com/
I came across Borkur whilst researching images for this project. I love the free feeling of his work, but also it has the noir touch that i'm hoping to get too.

The Digital Impressionist, Jared Shear ; http://jaredshear.com/2010/08/kowloon-walled-city/
Again, I came across the work of Jared whilst looking for art of city streets. I love jis work again for the free feeling, and that sense of chaos that I will be looking for!

If I could get development funding, and if I could afford them, I'd hire these guys in a flash, but then so would a lot of other directors/studios!

Please visit these guys sites, they are just so cool!

C ya for now!
Steve

Images

Hello Peoples!

As promised, here's some images that I find inspiring for Gift.

After the Start

Hello peoples!

So, what am I working on, I hear you say…
Professionally, I can't say, it's all hush-hush….sorry!
But my personal projects, which is what this Blog is all about.

Well there are several, in different stages of production.
I have a script for a short film called "Flawed" that is currently with a director friend of mine who's giving it the once over for me. I wrote the story for Flawed almost 5 years ago now, it's a simple story, telling that it is imperfections that make the world a beautiful place, and it is now in memory of my first Daughter, Mia, who had severe Spina-Bifida, and was born asleep. Our little Angel!
I'll post the script for Flawed soon enough.

I also have another story in development, this one called Gift, at the moment.
It's quite hard to describe just what the story is, cos it's not really gelled as yet. Again I had the idea for it some time ago, when I was a student at Bournemouth Uni, and the seed for the idea was the U2 song, Running to Stand Still, a song that is about a heroine addicted couple. Gift in itself is more about addiction, and it will be a film-noir with Sci-Fi and Diesel-Punk influenced Visuals, other than that, all I know at the moment is that it will be some sort of "treasure hunt", the rest you'll find out as I come up with it, and post it on here.

The next post will be some of the images that I find insperational for Gift, and from which I'm also starting to build the characters and the story itself.

So happy hunting peoples!
See ya soon!

Steve

The Start

Hi Folks

Ok, so I've started a blog, mostly so whoever is interested can see what I'm doing with my personal projects!

I hope it's informative, and that you enjoy what I, and my co-horts, get up to!

Cheers for now!

Steve