Update: Week 3 (sort of)

I'm back with an update on the project!

It's still really early on in the whole process. We've got this fantastic story that's growing and a mountain of reference materials to sort through and absorb. The cool bit is the location I chose. I am going with an actual city and going back to the mid-to-late 1800s to mix in the steampunk look with the local culture. It's a fantastic process and I don't think there is anything like it out there. And what city is it, you ask? I've settled on Braşov, România. It's one of the largest cities in the country and about 150 years ago, it's exactly what I'm looking for. The population is just about right. The factories and war-time mentality fits. In the mid 1800's, Romania wasn't even an established country yet. It was still split into various small principalities/kingdoms -- Moldavia (Romanian: Moldova) and Wallachia (Romanian: Valahia). By the end of World War I, Transylvania and a few others joined the growing nation. 


Within this country, there are several languages and base cultures to work with. The dominant ones of course are Hungarian, Romanian, and German. French, Spanish, Italian, and English are taught in schools and millions of people speak these languages. As you can see, I've been doing some homework. The history of this city is rich and reaches back as far as 100 BC. Plus, Prince Vlad the Impaler! (Dracula!?!?) The fun part of all this is going to be melding the Romanian culture, clothing, and customs into the gears, leather, brass, and contraptions of the ideal steampunk world. The "Victorian Era" for Romania was full of colorful clothing, beautiful architectural masterpieces, and a coming-together of long separated peoples to build a new nation. There is so much to work with! 


Goals: We plan to focus our efforts on finishing a draft (if not a finished product) of the Introduction and Part I. That's roughly 7 minutes worth to work on. With this we may look for outside help to finish the film. Hopefully extra knowledgeable animators. But for now we are ironing out details and beginning to explore what the characters will look like. 


More to come, as always...
--dave