R.I.P. ALIEN PLANET, WELCOME Ä O N!

I finally managed to revise two treatments and write a third one during the last 3 1/2 weeks. The new one is a Science-Fiction Drama called Ä O N. It started a few years ago as a short film idea, which was meant to be a throwback to classic Sci-Fi films. I always knew that it had more potential so I took some time off to rewrite it as a feature. What happened was that a lot of elements from the ALIEN PLANET screenplay ended up in ÄON, characters, scenes, locations, but in a totally different way than I expected. Now that I have finished the treatment, I really believe it could be a really unique Science-Fiction story. It's sort of a mix between the space-shuttle-sequence from 2001 and a classic love story ala ROMEO + JULIET, with a few action-sequences mixed in.

The other two are a horror film called COLOSSUS and a family film called ANDERS. I really feel comfortable with three very different treatments that are hopefully commercial enough to draw attention. 

I also would like to share the two homepages for my two features of 2011. Both are in English, so it would be really nice if you check them out!

My second feature of 2011, ABSCHIEDE - Five Goodbyes, is Online

It has been a busy and very stressful year, especially when I tried to finish ABSCHIEDE, an anthology movie whose first chapter I had created in 2008, right after PIXELSCHATTEN. But hey, two 85-minute features, one made for 100,000 Euros and one made for less than 3,000 Euros is not that bad, right?

Right now I'm taking some time off in California. Today I saw the first images of PROMETHEUS, and I believe that it visually is fulfilling my dream of going to that far distant space jockey world.

I was also thinking about taking the non-ALIEN bits of the ALIEN PLANET screenplay and inserting it into AION, a Sci-Fi love story that I want to be one of my next projects. It's 2001 meets Romeo & Juliet meets There Will Be Blood in some weird sense. I'd love to take the characters in Alien Planet and insert them into the crew of the spaceship AION, which is the background for an increndible love story. I always felt that the character pieces and the mood at the very beginning on the spaceship USS VASSUS were the most successful part of the screenplay. Will probably start writing a treatment soon.

Until then, please enjoy ABSCHIEDE - Five Goodbyes. Here's the teaser trailer.


And here's the full feature. For more info visit www.abschiede.com...

Pixelschatten is now online until May 29!

I hope you are all as tired of Pirates of the Carribean as me and check out my film at http://www.pixelschatten.com!

Pixel (Ben Gageik) is a 22-year-old small-town blogger: Everyone can read about him and his friends online. His blog "Pixelschatten" used to be the hippest thing in town, but now the local fame has faded away. His friends go to college, have new friends and interests, and his girlfriend Suse (Zora Klostermann) is irritated by the private issues revealed on the blog. When Pixel realizes that everyone but him is moving on, he changes all their lives with just one post...
 
"Pixelschatten" is a unique cinematic experience, a quirky-melancholic, yet warm and funny portrait of the "generation Internet", mixing the first-person point of you aesthetics of "Enter The Void" with the zeitgeist of "The Social Network". But this time it's not about the greedy entrepreneurs behind a moneymaking machine, it's about the people that spend their everyday life online. It's about you. And the spoilers for your life.

Teaser

A new Space Jockey from Tim Burden

The Last Rewrite and other stuff

I've been busy writing, shooting and editing this year, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that over 300 people have read ALIEN PLANET. Thank you to all of you, I would love to hear more opinions, especially with daily news about the Alien prequel coming out. I've also made the decision to have a last major rewrite at the end of the year. Why? Because I've come to the conclusion about what this story is about. Ripley in this screenplay is an almost mythological character entering the dark horizon of the underworld. Alien Planet is a story about the extension and ultimate ending of a single life. About the ultimate question: Why am I here? Ripley, gone through metamorphosis, is not attached to her ability to survive anymore. And because she already entered a world after her own (multiple) death, she can raise this question. This could be Heart of Darkness in space, at the end of the world. Indeed very epic, but more on an emotional level. And the story needs to get rid of all those things that are in there to please fans. Who knows? In the end it could become an original story, without the ballast of the franchise. Maybe Alien Planet could be the dark twin of Avatar?

In other news, I've been sitting in the post of my feature debut "Spoilers for My Life" for a few weeks. The film, which circles around a blogger named Pixel and is almost entirely told through the first person point of view will be hopefully finished until early January. I love the material (it will be around 80 to 90 mintues) that we're editing, it's funny and sometimes melancholic, and somehow we created a whole new filmic language that goes beyond experiments like "Lady in the Lake", "Enter the Void" or music videos like Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" or Cinnamon Chaser's "Luv Delux". It's gonna be a very fascinating film. There's a short German Making-of from the TV-show "Neues" online, for those who are curious: 

250 downloads

good to know that more people are reading it!