“The Underwater Realm”: The story behind the story
I can’t think of a better way to round out the year than with a story like this. David M. Reynolds, the director of a short I featured here about a year ago, got in touch with me to let me know the film had been submitted to a contest through the Raindance Film Festival. In March this year, I received an update from David and posted this:
Hey Scott,
I don’t know if you remember — but back in December you published a blog entry entitled ‘The Dream of Making a Movie’ featuring a short film that I made with my team here in the UK.
Firstly I am sorry it has taken me so long to follow this up with you! We have been kept waiting by the Raindance judging panel for what seems like a lifetime and it seemed daft to email you with no news!
I have news now though — WE WON! Raindance founder Elliot Grove and a team of judges selected our film to serve as the trailer for Raindance Festival 2011 which is a huge honour. They are now serving as executive producers on our next short film and providing us with a budget of £30,000! They are also flying us to Cannes this year (I have never been) and screening our next short at Raindance 2012.
The publicity that our film garnered because of popular blogs such as yours has been a great help and has opened a number of doors for us, so thank you. More important than publicity though was the recognition from yourself. Our short was based on the production journey of our previous film, a 50-minute ‘balls to the wall’ zombie actioner not known for it’s subtle storytelling. As writer/director it was truly cathartic for me to know that you appreciated the short, again I am sorry it has taken me so long to tell you that!
Our next short is ambitious, exciting and groundbreaking in that it is a sword and sandals picture set entirely underwater. We have started SUBA training and wirework rehearsals, CGI research and underwater cinematography tests — it is a very exciting time here at Realm Pictures HQ (the basement of the house we all share). We are living the dream here, and thank you for making that dream a little bit more real!
You can see the start of our journey on www.theunderwaterrealm.com — I’d love to know your thoughts!
“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” (Michaelangelo)
Warmest Regards,
Dave
And then today I saw a tweet from David about the project, emailed him, then heard this:
Hey Scott — thanks for getting back to me!
We won a national competition with that short you saw this time last year — and as a result have spent the last 12 months working on a series of 5 films set entirely underwater! We do a weekly video blog as the project develops: http://www.theunderwaterrealm.com
These are short pieces that tell the tale of the five times throughout history that humanity has come into contact with a race of people living beneath the ocean. We are hoping this will pave the way for a deal on the trilogy we have written set in the amazing -and completely real — world under the sea.
Your blog is a constant inspiration as we create these scripts (think gladiator/lotr underwater…) keep up the great work!
We have 55 hours left on Kickstarter, and have already smashed our $60,000 target (we are at 123%). This is a really big deal for us here in the UK. Our ‘UK Film Council’ was abolished in the recession and public arts funding is at an all time low. It’s inspiring to see that the public are so eager to directly fund the art they want to see.
We have had donations from some amazing people: Chris Anderson (curator of TED), Sylvia Earle (TIME magazine’s first ‘Hero of the Earth’) and Roz Savage (first woman to row solo across the Atlantic).
Any help you can give us to promote the project and the kickstarter campaign in this last 48 hour push would be greatly appreciated!
All the best — with sincere thanks for all your help and all the great content,
Dave
Isn’t that great? A group of filmmakers, using passion and persistence to move this audacious project along step by step. I just went to KickStarter and kicked in a contribution. How about you? To help out David and his team, go here. Only about 24 hours left!