I was on set one day, having spent over a year pouring over my own Star Wars fanfilm script (most of the basic plot was written while filming on "Golden Compass"!), refining it til I was satisfied, and experimenting with VFX techniques til I was happy, when it suddenly struck me: there are THOUSANDS - literally thousands - of Star Wars fanfilms already online. Although mine was to be a new approach (to date, no one has yet attempted the approach I had in mind - fingers crossed it stays that way!), it was, none-the-less, yet another Star Wars fanfilm.
Don't get me wrong - I LOVE fanfilms! Especially Star Wars ones that are done well, ie, good story, good acting and top notch VFX (of course!). But I had NEVER seen a Terminator fanfilm that I could recall, and so I went on an extensive internet hunt to see what had been attempted.
And I found - virtually nothing. Not counting re-edits of the original movies, and not counting numerous shorts of teenagers (and younger) running around their back gardens and hometown suburban streets (with very basic VFX), I only found one spoof for a comedy show.
I did discover that someone else had the idea of doing a film set in the future world of James Cameron's amazing vision- but it was to be a full CG offering. No-one seemed to have attempted a live action version of those future war flashbacks that made the Terminator films stick in my mind! I was soon to find out why...
My initial thought was to do a quick 5 to 10 minute short, tops - that would involve 3 or 4 of my friends running around against a greenscreen in as close an approximation of the original action sequences, with the sets, machines and all explosions, etc, to be created using photos, reference footage and CG animation on the PC, and composited in afterwards.
I ran a "quick test" (the initial animation took over 33 hours to render...!) and showed it to my friends on set one day, whilst performing in my supporting artist capacity. The guys were bowled over, and immediately asked to be involved! I didn't even have to beg! :-D
Early Aerial Hunter Killer (AHK) shots
This shot of an AHK is taken from my first render test - the 18 second take-off sequence took around 33 hours to render!Anyway, we came up with a quick, original script, based on the future war scenario - but with our own ending, and a neat little twist. Things were looking good!
Until I went online to look for reference shots and 3D models that other people had created and would be willing to let us use. I hadn't really had that much 3D graphic work experience at that stage, but was keen to learn - but we didn't have the time (so I thought), as we wanted to get this done in the next few weeks.
Early Test render of a T800 endoskeletonMy mind started racing - I'd always wanted to see these scenes filmed and was disappointed to discover they had never been made, only scripted and storyboarded. But boy, what storyboards!!! Absolutely exquisite renderings of familiar characters and machines - and some new, as yet unseen creations.
The technology may not have been in place back then to pull all of these off convincingly, but it was now...and I very quickly saw how it would be possible to create a lot of it using greenscreen techniques and digital sets.
Well that was it. I couldn't not do it now! I started writing, and came up with a shortish script, showing a lot of the final battle elements originally scripted with a lot of my own ideas and visions thrown in to spice it up and flesh it out!
That was just the start...
I showed it to the guys originally interested, and they were even more enthusiastic about it! Well, what red-blooded heterosexual male WOULDN'T relish the chance to brandish a plasma rifle around, run amok on a film set pretending to take out multiple terminators??? It's the ultimate "playing soldiers" scenario!!! Getting people to play various parts in this film was NOT a problem! :-)
Early Lighting test of a T800My problem was that this thing had now grown beyond what I'd first anticipated - a one to two day shoot, with an estimated completion date of two months for post-production. It was now a twenty minute short, showing everything that every Terminator fan would like to see - and more.
I found a chap online, based in Poland - Marek - and his animations were astounding to say the least! Have a look at this short vid to see what I mean...
The Dock - by Marek Paterczyk
Most people had only created 3D models, and even provided them with basic animations - but he had tried to take it one step further and create animated short films or clips: I was convinced he would be the perfect person to help us on this - but would he be willing to put aside enough time to give us what we required?
As it turned out, he was a HUGE Terminator fan, and was more than willing to help out - once he had seen a copy of what passed as a script back then. (This was way back in May 2008.)
I struck lucky! Not only was Marek onboard to help us with the 3D aspect of the production, but it turned out he was quite talented when it came to the ideas section of the script and developing what we had into something far more special...
We are still writing, and every version of the script is dramatically better than the last! Which is not bad when you consider that I had heard on the grapevine, that an old friend of mine had managed to see the 3 rd draft of the script (even though he wasn't involved in the project at the time) and had proclaimed my script to be "visonary" and ambitious"...! I had heard this from a mutual friend who had worked with him on set and I was, needless to say, quite chuffed!
This other friend is a writer and doesn't beat about the bush if something sucks. He has now offered to give the completed script a once over when the time comes!
My view? Well, if it WASN'T ambitious, what would be the point of making it??
More to come, on the ever expanding script, cast and crew...
