Making SciExploitation, Then and Now. (NSFW)
How years ago, I took retro sci-fi and grind-house and made up something I call Sci-Exploitation. 18+
So this is the section where I’m not going to censor myself or my art.
Yesterday, I posted my mission statement for Sci-Exploitation Anthology, starting with the first storyline that I’m co-producing with Doug Mayfield. The idea is that it’s going to be my umbrella for different exploitation-style science fiction stories I want to tell. They may be solely my own productions or they may be stories I develop with other people who would have partial ownership of that particular intellectual property (IP) but not the anthology itself.
It’s kind of like other anthologies like Black Mirror, Twilight Zone, or Love, Death, + Robots. Each story is different but because of the label that they all share, you as the audience know what you’re going to get, more or less. I don’t have to sell a new crop of people on it, each time.
The title and the whole concept started with a short film script I wrote in 2012 that is based on something that sort of doesn’t exist. Robert Rodriguez was pushing the digitally recreated “grindhouse” look to independent filmmakers because it took advantage of film grain, jumpy frames, dust, and scratches to take projects with a lesser production value and turn them into something stylish and fun. It made it okay to take stories that would otherwise be considered lowbrow and trashy, and turn them into something fun and energetic. It didn’t matter if your green screen key wasn’t perfect because the camera couldn’t capture the color that well. You just dirtied it up in post, throwe in some beautiful women whose clothes didn’t always stay on, guns, bad guys, and action. These are the things you hoped you’d see in movies like Forbidden Planet or Green Slime but never happened. Then I realized that if I took that beautiful, colorful kind of retro sci-fi and ran it through the grindhouse filter, it could happen. It could really be something special. Simple.
Well, not that simple but you get the idea.
I actually did shoot it, too with my friend Jeremy Hanes in the lead role but because I was green at this sort of thing I screwed up some contracts, and the actress who played “the girl” wanted to back out even though she had already been paid and we were well into post-production. I could have replaced her but after realizing that all the contracts contained the same loophole, I couldn’t proceed unless I got everyone to re-sign. However, they had all moved on to other things and were very hard to get a hold of. I don’t think they were avoiding me, that’s just the way things go.
I took the loss and the lesson but I ended that project knowing that I could try it again, make it better, even make it be more. Plus, I still had all the assets I had built for it, prop weapons, creature puppets, miniature spaceships, and buildings.
The plot was simple enough to recreate. Guy falls in love with an alien princess who isn’t shy about her body but her daddy is evil, so he has to shoot his way through a bunch of robots and aliens so that they can be together. It’s Star Wars meets Rapunzel in the spirit of El Mariachi. I’ll get back to it but first…
…there’s Escape From Planet Omega-12, which I’m really excited about. It’s another simple concept. I’ll omit some of the cooler details because they’re going to blow people’s minds but the story centers around Tera, the wife of a starship captain and sole survivor of a devastating crash on an alien moon. In the version that I’ll release as a comic book and animated series (or movie) for general audiences, she wears only her underwear because that’s what she had on in the crash. As you saw in my previous post it’s kind of an homage to “escape pod Ripley” in the original Alien.
However, in honor of Edgar Rice Burrouse's fantastic sci-fi novel A Princess of Mars, there will be a version where she has to survive in this hostile world, topless. What? It’s a very warm planet and there’s no one else around to see her but we the audience. She’ll be fine.
Don’t worry, I still intend to tell good stories and Tera here is going to be an amazing character. Regardless of what people might think, I’m not out to produce smut. I’m just stripping away the things that we as a culture have become so uptight about. I think that like Heavy Metal Magazine used to do in the past, I can create something alluring, beautiful, and fun that people can relax and enjoy specifically BECAUSE it could never happen in the real world. So, I’m going to try and get away with some outrageous stuff.
There’s more I’d like to say and more story ideas I want to tell you about. I intend to also post about the production of these projects which will be a combination of live-action, animation, puppets, and miniatures. There will be BTS and tutorials so please be sure to subscribe so you’ll always see it first.
For now, I’d like to leave you with a few more of my uncensored concept designs and test animations. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed creating them. After you look, hop on over to part three by clicking HERE.
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