"Maria" is in pre-production

[visceralpsyche]

Hi all,

it's been too long between posts and visits here but unfortunately real work has gotten in the way.

But I have some great news for you all!

"Maria", the third and final part of my robot short film trilogy, is now officially in pre-production!

I was fortunate enough to work with a great American crew on a recent job here in Japan and the producer I met from that job recently contacted me about directing a short cyberpunk movie (which will be part of a set of shorts to be marketed as a compilation disc) which his company would fund.

Anyway, I told him about my ideas for the final part of my trilogy and he has been very receptive, so I am currently living in Final Draft (script writing software) perfecting the screenplay before submitting it!

Now as with everything in Hollywood, nothing is for certain until the money's in the bank and the contract signed, but presuming it all goes to plan I will shoot the movie here in Tokyo around April/May this year. The exact timing is dependent on delivery of the next generation Red cameras called Epic and Scarlet, since the goal with "Maria" is to shoot it in 3D!

Post-production could take anywhere from one to six months I'd guess. Why so long? Well, I've saved the best bit for last.....

The production will have its visual effects done by a little effects house some of you might have heard of, called ILM. Yes, THAT ILM!!! So it'll be a quantum leap ahead of "Eve" and "Birth". Expect full-on robotic endo-skeleton stuff and much, much more at Hollywood feature level quality.

Essentially, the goal is that by the end of 2010 "Maria" will be a completed short with a fantastic story about female robots, set in a futuristic Tokyo with state-of-the-art special effects, all in 3D!

This is by far the most ambitious project I have yet undertaken, but I know that with the right talents on board this can be not only a great movie in its own right, but possibly the best ASFR short movie this community could ever wish for.

Story, as always, is paramount! This won't be just another empty visual effects extravaganza. This movie will have HEART and characters you care for. The effects, stunning as they may end up being, will only ever be there to enhance the story, never the other way round. /RANT_OFF

One last piece of news for those who have been following my stuff for a while - I may have found an angel investor to fund the first Visceral Black episode as well, so it looks like 2010 might be the year it finally all comes together!

That's all for now but I'll report back with more news when I have it.

Don't forget to follow me on Twitter @visceralpsyche to keep up to date with my other film work.

Happy 2010 everyone!

Paul

[Frostillicus]

WOW! Excellent news. I wish you all the best in these projects. I know that they cost time and money so I hope that things work out. It's good to know that you do this because you have a genuine appreciation for it yourself. It's also great that you are targeting a much broader audience than our corner of the internet because it's honestly not enough (especially after that "Roxxxy" disaster!).

I'm really impressed with the news of ILM's involvement! Amazing. They do some great stuff and now the news of 3D as well

Keep us updated, sir. There is more interest here than people are letting on about. I, for one, appreciate and applaud your continued efforts.

[visceralpsyche]

Thanks for the nice comments all.

Here's the first piece of pre-production concept art:



P.A.C.HYD.3.R.M (Pachyderm) - Power Authorisation Chip & HYDrogen Recharge Management v3.

It's how the androids in "Maria" keep themselves charged and is a core part of the plot....

If you use Twitter you can get this info as soon as I post it via @visceralblack which is my robot specific feed, aside from my main feed @visceralpsyche

OK, enough teasing, back to writing!

Cheers,

Paul

[revtek]

That is really awesome news. Thanks, Paul.

Now, if you could only get Tara Clark to do a cameo...

[visceralpsyche]

Now, if you could only get Tara Clark to do a cameo...

Actually, if she's available and is up for it, she'll be a major character in the story, since it is a direct prequel to "Eve"....

[visceralpsyche]

Another small script tease, this one for all of you who love your robots showing their interior panels etc:



This scene takes place in "The Piston Club"

Cheers,

Paul

[visceralpsyche]

Also, I request that Gwar be in this scene.

The whole idea of The Piston Club is the fulfillment of all your desires without fear of stigmatisation.

"Original Sin hewn of metal and flesh."

This is the Devil's playground, so to speak. So yeah, the ultra-bass voices of Cannibal Corpse, Amon Amarth etc are the kind of driver I'm envisioning. No boundaries....

On a totally related note, I had a brilliant script workshopping session tonight with a mentor of sorts and am stoked with where the screenplay is at as a result. It's tight, has a number of amazing concepts in it and is in my not-so-humble opinion(!) going to hit audiences emotionally in a way they rarely get hit. People are going to REMEMBER this film! And that's without saying anything about the ASFR subject matter at all! I think this film is going to touch a global audience way beyond just our little corner of the internet.

Can you tell I'm a bit pumped after tonight?!

[visceralpsyche]

But who is the band?

In all seriousness, no idea yet. I imagine it'll most likely be a Japanese band unless there's a really good band touring locally when I shoot that is willing to be in the movie and have their song played for essentially no money (or in return for a music video made from the movie and additional shots of them).

But anything could happen....

[visceralpsyche]

Get Dir En Grey if you can. They are a Visual Kei band and have a very heavy sound and makeup/costuming.

Yeah they're pretty crazy with their videos too.

A quick news update, Maria is 99% complete script-wise. Just finished another session with my screenplay mutual consultant (he checks mine and I check his) and it is TIGHT!

The story is a dark blend of unceasing brutality and a beautiful love story between two robots, set in a very dystopian world. It's going to be a hard R rating and will be filmed on location in Tokyo and Shanghai (at this point).

It's going to turn heads, that's for sure!

Cheers from Tokyo,

Paul

[visceralpsyche]

It's done!!!

"Maria" is completed as a screenplay

I sent it to my producer in L.A. and first feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. A quote: "brilliant and fantastic!"

Now the next phase begins - casting, collating the visuals, concept art, storyboarding, pre-viz for CGI, etc etc.

I'm especially interested to hear feedback on the look of the gynoids. Bearing in mind they are sentient, emotional beings that look like us, what are the subtleties you'd like to see that would make them obviously robotic without altering the basic human pattern? eg. visible joint seams.

Cheers,

Paul

[jolshefsky]

I'm especially interested to hear feedback on the look of the gynoids. Bearing in mind they are sentient, emotional beings that look like us, what are the subtleties you'd like to see that would make them obviously robotic without altering the basic human pattern? eg. visible joint seams.

Excellent news on the script and all that. I'm really looking forward to the finished movie!

As for the look and behavior of the gynoids, I would consider making autonomic and automatic behaviors deliberately more mechanical. What I mean is, if I were to make a robot that were to pass for human, and assuming it had an AI that would allow its thoughts to be "free", I would make it have an autonomic AI to handle other body operations. They would automatically breathe, blink, and fidget so they wouldn't just sit perfectly still. As such, those behaviors would be a little more mechanical if one paid close attention.

For instance, fidgeting would be some kind of parameterized algorithm related to "nervousness" or "attraction" of the main AI -- at idle, they would just shift weight and move a little periodically, but when nervous, they would have some set of tics they would cycle through (running their hand through their hair, etc.) that would be mechanically identical each time.

Another thing is that the main AI would supply instructions like, "look at the person talking" and the autonomic AI would perform that action, but it would be more purely mechanical looking. If someone were to interrupt a gynoid (i.e. a waiter, let's say), the gynoid would turn and look at them in an optimized way like a servo-controlled robot picks up parts: she would optimally accelerate and decelerate the rotation of her head and accelerate and decelerate pitch so she turned and looked up at exactly the same rate -- she would never turn _then_ look up, in other words.

As for their physical appearance, I think it depends on how you think they are built. If they are made piecemeal (arms, legs, head all separate) they they will have some kind of seam. If they are made in whole and then the skin added later in panels, then they'll have some kind of line around the panel. If they have goo added for skin, then they may have "scars" from maintenance -- perhaps a slightly discolored shoulder, for instance.

As for the appearance of seams, you could always make seam-like seams (some kind of discontinuity at the surface) but I think that tends to look silly (if, unfortunately, also super sexy) because it wouldn't match with how something in the real world would -- a seam would fold and flex at different rates, let in contaminants, and it's way too easy to just tie on some thin rubber bands and fake it unconvincingly. Consider removing any cosmetic blemishes from those areas and give it a test -- just a slightly smoothing may do the trick so it looks like an attempt was made to hide seams. In other words, let's say their skin has natural-looking blemishes printed onto it; at the seams, matching those blemishes would be like using one of those patch kits on vinyl: the color may be perfect, but the seam is obvious because the pattern doesn't match or is not present.

[visceralpsyche]

I also like some factory markings like barcodes, etc in subtle areas.

Kishin, this one is definitely part of the design and is written as such in the screenplay, so you will be happy for sure!

Jason, thanks for the detailed input, some good thoughts there.

There is already one other item I'm putting in that is central to the plot so I won't mention it specifically.

Keep it coming!

Thanks,

Paul

[visceralpsyche]

I'd love some feedback, good or bad, on this first mockup poster for "Maria". This is using a background from another movie I shot, but I will re-do it with a girl in the picture once I source a model. The mood I'm going for is there though, so have at it!



Also, does the logline work for you? Does it make you curious, or is it too abstract?

Cheers,

Paul

[dale coba]

Paul, I put on my obtuse nitpicker glasses:

The bar code feels a little squat, and not sharp-edged. Is it floating above, or cut through the photo layer?

Geeks try to read into bar codes, but clearly her digital name has more info than the five characters in "Maria".

Some readers/viewers could even fail to twig to the title, since smaller words under bar codes not commanding much attention ordinarily.

"MECHANICAL SENTIENT BRUTALIZED LOVED" reads with awkward parallelism (first two describe a state, second two describe the subjection to a state by others' actions).

Also, with "MECHANICAL SENTIENT" - I get caught on thinking "sentient" is being used as a noun.

I bristle at all caps, even a little on a poster size.
If not lowercase after the initial capital "Mechanical Sentient...", how about lowercase letters after the capital but the lowercase are larger font-size wise than normal.
Or, using small uppercase letters after an initial capital?

I'm a bit worried about how the meter/flow of those four words scans as a unit: visually, aurally, and conceptually.

- Dale Coba

[visceralpsyche]

Dale, awesome feedback, thanks!

This is just a low res mockup as a starting point, so all the elements will be done in much higher resolution when I make the real thing.

The logline stuff is just a first idea. I needed to put something up the top to balance the image out But I'm interested in more opinions from others as well on it.

Actually, the barcode does indeed spell MARIA, it's a single font designed for barcode readers. So geek away

The barcode itself is supposed to be floating above the image slightly, with a green/blue glow emitting from underneath.

But again, thanks for the comments and please keep them coming. It's really appreciated.

Cheers,

Paul

[jolshefsky]

I'd love some feedback, good or bad, on this first mockup poster for "Maria". This is using a background from another movie I shot, but I will re-do it with a girl in the picture once I source a model. The mood I'm going for is there though, so have at it!

I think the model will make the difference. With her, either show mechanical and sentient (i.e. obviously a machine but doing sentient actions) and spell out "brutalized, loved" or show a brutalized, loved woman and spell out "sentient, mechanical". That also fixes the grammatical problem of traits versus external actions.

And bar codes are so 1991 ... a 2D matrix code would be more appropriate either with fictional data about Maria or a rich set of information about the movie.

[Grendizer]

Part of the problem with all caps is the use of the periods after each word. You should think about using bullets, or nothing at all. Personally, I don't have a problem with all caps, but if you do it you shouldn't try and use other components of sentence structure (periods, quotes, commas, etc.). Also, I'd put "brutalized" last, only because it leaves the audience with the impression of conflict and tension, where as "loved" feels more like resolution or a state of contentment -- which makes for a poor story.

[visceralpsyche]

And bar codes are so 1991 ... a 2D matrix code would be more appropriate either with fictional data about Maria or a rich set of information about the movie.

Haha, Japan certainly has the edge on the rest of the world catching on to QR codes. I have one on my business card here so I'm familiar with them.

That said, the bar code has an iconic edge though, because we tend to think of them in science fiction as having to do with some form of slavery or imprisonment. Think Agent 47 in "Hitman" for example.

But your point is noted and I'll give it some thought, as the QR code could indeed be a real life pointer to the movie's website or have Maria's bio info etc embedded in it. Could be a fun use of it, that's for sure!

Thanks Jolshefsky!

[visceralpsyche]

Part of the problem with all caps is the use of the periods after each word. You should think about using bullets, or nothing at all. Personally, I don't have a problem with all caps, but if you do it you shouldn't try and use other components of sentence structure (periods, quotes, commas, etc.). Also, I'd put "brutalized" last, only because it leaves the audience with the impression of conflict and tension, where as "loved" feels more like resolution or a state of contentment -- which makes for a poor story.

Interesting thoughts Grendizer, thanks. Bullets can definitely be substituted and as you say, will make it more abstract. Good point on "loved" being last, though the bleak poster design itself should make the viewer question why "loved" is on there in the first place (along with reconciling "brutalized" and "loved" in their minds.... not an easy task!).

Food for thought. Thanks guys!

[dale coba]

I can imagine combining the two encoding systems.
2D bar code on the macro scale;
QR within, using faint shades of gray-scale, not just 0/1 pure black or white pixels.

- Dale Coba

[visceralpsyche]

Ok, here's the second concept poster, now with the addition of Maria in the frame:



This is a completely new photo, captured in high resolution, so what you are seeing here is just 16.7% of the full size version!

If anyone is particularly adept at photo-manipulating her arm in order for it to look more robotic/segmented (whilst keeping a humanoid look), let me know and I'll send you the full size PSD to work with. The best looking manipulation will become the official teaser poster for the movie!

I got a lot of feedback from people on the first concept poster regarding the text (both content and form) and in general everyone loved it, so I decided to keep it as-is for now. I did incorporate Grendizer's bullet idea as it made total sense, grammatically speaking. But everyone's comments have been very valuable and I hope you'll keep making them.

Cheers,

Paul

[visceralpsyche]

Too long between updates, I know! Sorry!

Anyway....

"Maria" continues to gain steam and get more crazy/awesome/disturbing by the day. I've found and been working with an AMAZING concept artist to help visualise the world of "Maria" and if we can pull off 80% of what I envision, this film is going to blow people away on several levels.

I don't want to give anything away as we've come up with a really unique gynoid look that hasn't been done in any film before, so you'll just have to trust me. If my idea manages to make it onscreen.... you'll be treated to a gynoid that will make you sit up and say "Of course! That's how it would look if it were real!"

And you're going to see it all being built from parts through to the final form.

We've engineered Maria and her line of gynoids based on real world practicalities. She's a sexbot, built for that purpose, and we've spent a lot of time agonising over the little details that most people won't pick up, but you guys will I'm sure, to make her believable.

As far as the world goes, the budget has been upped and our plan is now to shoot the entire film in Shanghai and possibly Hong Kong, to give it a very Asian feel. Think "Ghost In The Shell" for inspiration.

No idea on who will play Maria but I'm delighted to report that Tara Clark, the star of "Eve", will be reprising her role as Eve. "Maria" is a direct prequel to "Eve", so Eve is finally going to get her backstory, even though the main protagonist is Maria herself.

We'll be casting worldwide for the part of Maria and hope to get a name actress on board. Given the subject matter this may be difficult but I remain optimistic....

I'd love to hear your suggestions on who you would pick in a perfect world. My brief is basically that she needs to look young and innocent and be able to act. Busty/slutty is not how I see Maria. She should be able to portray vulnerability most of all. As an audience I want you to care about her. I have some names in mind but don't want to predetermine the outcome in any way so I'll leave it up to you.

I'm currently in pre-production on another short I'll be directing at the end of this month (not scifi) so there won't be many big updates again until after that has been shot.

Cheers all!

Paul

[fembotfan]

Ok my number one pick would be Leelee Sobieski.

[visceralpsyche]

Thanks for the feedback fembotfan

[jakeCTom]

Well, I would be happy with someone unknown as long as they can act and are cute/pretty. I really can't think of a certain actress off the top of my head. Something will pop in there and I'll let loose a name.