Prologue

In the year 2013, technology had developed considerably since the Industrial Revolution. The efficiency of steam as a primary source of energy had revolutionised manufacturing, transport, and communication. Electrical power had created whole new branches of science. The world was changing.

When Professor Brantham Gambit developed a ground breaking new theory on the nature of the Universe, one that required expensive experimentation, King William was receptive to its potential, and granted him full funding to build his Great Machine.

Lady Eleanor Xandler, adventurer and diplomat, became fascinated by the Professor's work, and, whenever she found herself near his laboratory, would drop in to assist him with his experiments. A friendship soon developed.

But, as time passed, too many tests failed, and Eleanor's concerns grew. Each failure caused spectacularly disruptive complications, and, though they were quick to repair the damage where they could, each disaster was worse than the last, compounding to dangerous levels. Eleanor decided that she could no longer support the Professor's endeavours. She begged him to be more cautious, but, caught up in his fervour, he ignored her. Reluctantly, Eleanor decided they had to dissolve their friendship and go their separate ways.

King William agreed with Eleanor's misgivings, and immediately cut off all funding. But it was all too late; in spite of the warnings, Professor Gambit continued with his work, and managed to complete his monstrous Machine at last.

Incensed by his pertinence and the great danger the Professor was putting his countrymen in, the King sent his Captain of the Guard to stop him, and shut down the Great Machine once and for all.

While returning from her most recent journey, Eleanor became aware of the King's plan, and raced ahead in the hope of arriving before it was too late...

Behind The Scenes

I had the idea for the story a long time ago. I was trying to think of a way to do a Steampunk story on a low budget. The best I could come up with was to have a single fancy room, perhaps in an old mansion or stately home, and dress it with brass fittings, then have two people in basic boiler-plate Victorian era costumes, and develop an exciting story around those limitations. So I imagined the heroine running into the room, confronting the Professor with some gobbledegook vernacular, and he arguing the justification for his actions.




I never found a good location for that scenario. They're hard to find in this part of the world, so it seemed the only way it was ever going to happen was if we built a set, which is way too expensive for our little bits of fun. But then one day we shot a film set in World War ll, and many of those sequences were filmed in front of a greenscreen. In finding our way through the challenge of digital compositing, we learned a lot, and then a secondary WWll film which was 100% greenscreen was even easier to achieve, even though at that time we had low budget interlaced cameras in 4:3 ratio. I figured if I can do such good work with those limitations, then imagine what I could do with an HD camera and an evenly lit greenscreen in a controlled studio space.




So now I didn't need to construct a real set, I could make any virtual background I wanted. The challenge was still there to make it look believable, if stylised, but I had already overcome most of the potential problems. I was confident I knew how to achieve every single shot that I filmed. So I wrote the script, naming the characters, figuring out the backstory, and maybe the continuing story, fleshing out the beginning and end, all to give it some heft, the greenscreen freeing me up to have as epic a scale as I wanted. Indeed, I was still thinking small, until someone pointed out that I could now set the main scene in a giant warehouse full of machinery if I wanted. So I did.




And, apart from running over schedule on the shoot day and having to miss a few shots, I managed to film everything I needed. In fact I made sure the cameras ran long so that I'd have extra spontaneous moments, which was a cunning plan indeed as I used many of those shots as inserts, and also to kludge together some of what I had not had time to shoot on the day. Part of the fun of editing and compositing is creating something out of nothing, and there are at least three shots that I made up from small disparate pieces, and I also managed to seamlessly rearrange the opening sequence into a different order than I had storyboarded.




The post-production was my job. I am a reasonably experienced 3D artist and compositor now, even though I'm an amateur and haven't had much professional work in the Industry. I had guessed it would take me three months, maybe six, to get the majority of the post-production complete, but I really underestimated how long some of the tricky parts would take. Couple that with my losing my job, then one of my PCs giving up the ghost, I now was struggling to get it done.




Most of the compositing is done, and I've dabbled a bit with the sound effects. I hope with a donation of funds I can get it complete in double-quick time. Music is still to come, that will be handled by someone else, and then I have to make some promotional materials for the Indiegogo donators, and the DVDs for everybody. Luckily I am pretty good at both of those things, so I should enjoy it and do a good job too.

You can find out more about how I progressed on my blog.

Cast

Eleanor Xandler

Professor Brantham Gambit

Captain Galloway of the King's Guard

King's Soldier

Gadzooks the Robot
Sarah Breen

Phil Zachariah

George Ivanoff

Paul Allica

Himself

Crew

Written and Directed by Paul Potiki


Director of Photography

Camera Assistant

B Camera

Sound Recordist

Clapper Loader

Original Music

Props


Wardrobe


Make-Up and Hair

Visual Effects


Editing and Sound Effects

Runner
David Barker

Shane Mengaziol

Rob Hamilton

Darren Maxwell

Paul Allica

Andy Scott

Adam Gill
Dave Hankin

Alexandra Chambers
of Clockwork Butterfly

Samantha Purton

Paul Potiki
Rob Hamilton

Paul Potiki

Kel Dolen