Thursday, March 02, 2006

Mmm... rivets...


shockwave
Originally uploaded by jamesandthebluecat.
I thought I'd have a go at pretty much making up a screenplay as I went along - lately I've been planning out loads of stuff, then losing interest by the time it came to start work proper. So I thought I'd go the other way, and not worrying even slightly about boring things like budget, filmability, or whether anyone other than me would want to see it. Not things I'd normally recommend, but it's good to go bonkers once in a while and see what results.

So I thought I'd do a sort of tribute to those old Seventies comic strips where a plucky British youth somehow finds himself in sole charge of some bizarre mechanical contraption, likeThe Iron Fish, Robot Archie, or The Python. This is all stuff which has been parodied many times before, (Viz did a fabulous pisstake of The Iron Fish, called something like 'Professor Fimstrode's Fabulous Hovering Metal Arse' or somesuch), but I thought it might be interesting to do a more straightforward take - there's something inherently funnier about these things existing in a small English town rather than, say a modern American city, where we're quite used to seeing these things in films and comics. Of course, I could be terribly wrong.

Anyway, I've written about it here now, so I have to finish it. Also, I've come across some design sketches for Victoriana-era Transformers (via boingboing), which is the sort of thing I really should have got over, but possibly never will.

5 comments:

BiScUiTs said...

Ah good, it's about time we saw something a bit different. Bring on the metal monstery type things. Better stock up on WD40 though.

Lee said...

If that bloody advert made you grin like an idiot, of course you'll never get over it. I've started buying original artwork from the old Transformer comics, so I suppose I'm a lost cause.

Dave said...

Hurrah! Bring back Victorian steel engineering!

The script will include a cricket match, won't it? [The fact that I have a club tour to Devon in September, and would be available for filming whilst I'm in the West Country has no bearing on this question.]

Abaculus said...

Ooooh, it's a bit League-of-Extraordinary-Gentlemen, isn't it? Or maybe Wild Wild West. In other words Hollywood hasn't managed to get steampunk robots right yet, so the field is yours for the taking, James.

Anonymous said...

I always thought that Marvel should do a "Spiderman comes to Britain" thang, in which Spidey would be able to walk through the medieval streets of, say, Canterbury or York just touching the walls from time to time.
I realise that this image amuses only myself, but that's never stopped me before..

Word verification: bixfu -like Toy-fu but with biscuits!