Light of Dead Stars Film Project

Ultra-low bud­get fea­ture to be shot in UK.

What’s it about?

A false­ly-awak­ened spir­i­tu­al seek­er winds up as an acci­den­tal ser­i­al mur­der­er when every woman he touch­es dies of unknown caus­es. He is hunt­ed by a police detec­tive whose grasp on real­i­ty slow­ly comes unrav­elled in the face of inex­plic­a­ble evidence. 

Blade Run­ner meets Blue Vel­vet: Throw Don­nie Darko, The Ten­ant, Man Bites Dog, I Heart Huck­abees, The Lob­ster, & ear­ly Hal Hart­ley & Atom Egoy­an into Seth Brundle’s tele­pod, sprin­kle with some Cor­mac McCarthy, and you may get some idea of what to expect.

This fea­ture-length script is in nine chap­ters. First chap­ter here (PDF).

This project is cur­rent­ly in pre-pro­duc­tion with Land Made Films. The plan is to assem­ble cast and crew and fund­ing (of rough­ly £1500) to film a “Proof of World” short of rough­ly 25-min­utes with which to then raise funds for the full fea­ture. For this pre­lim­i­nary shoot, every­one will be work­ing for free (expens­es-only). If suf­fi­cient funds are then raised for the fea­ture, actors will receive back-pay (min­i­mum wage) and agreed on wage for any fur­ther work mov­ing forward. 

The most like­ly loca­tion for the first shoot (5–7 days) will be Northamp­ton and Lon­don, around April 2024. 

Be advised: Land-Made Films is a covid-non-con­form­ing, mRNA-wary, and NRW (Not Remote­ly Woke) com­pa­ny for intre­pid souls will­ing to swim against the ris­ing tide of total­i­tar­i­an­ism, and risk all for an authen­tic cre­ative com­mu­ni­ty experience.

We pre­fer to work with non-mRNA vac­cined due to health com­pli­ca­tions result­ing from these untest­ed jabs.

Proof of World

John Hus­ton’s advice to film­mak­ers: “Shoot every scene as if it was the most impor­tant scene.” In the case of a short film, apply this to every shot and every detail.

Ide­al­ly, the Proof of Con­cept short should be the best it can pos­si­bly be as a stand-alone cre­ation, to demon­strate what we as a team are capa­ble of. It is then less “proof of con­cept” (con­cepts are a dime a dozen) than a proof of the film­mak­ing team: our vision, com­mit­ment, inge­nu­ity, courage, orig­i­nal­i­ty, and tal­ent. We could think of it as a “Proof of World,” then, since in the end world-build­ing is what makes great fic­tion (sci­ence or oth­er­wise) for an audi­ence to immerse them­selves in.

TL;DR: qual­i­ty over quan­ti­ty is a good guid­ing prin­ci­ple: bet­ter to make an A+ 25 minute short, than a C + two-hour fea­ture. And a good prin­ci­ple is to start as we mean to proceed.

Of course, the pur­pose of the POW is to raise funds for the fea­ture. But cater­ing to what we imag­ine mon­ey peo­ple might respond to is risky at the best of times. The more sat­is­fied we are with the POW, the more con­fi­dent, per­sis­tent, and per­sua­sive we are like­ly to be in using it to raise funding.

SYNOPSIS:

In an unspec­i­fied near-future city, a dis­en­chant­ed and jad­ed cop, Gabriel Link, is on the hunt for a killer. Young women are dying, caus­es unknown.

Until recent­ly, Jed Frost was just anoth­er slack­er, liv­ing aim­less­ly with his girl­friend and cat. But he has under­gone an awak­en­ing and is able to hear people’s thoughts and see the future laid out before him, as a series of alter­nat­ing inevitabil­i­ties. He has become a “resid­ual image” of him­self, a liv­ing embod­i­ment of non-dual con­scious­ness. All he sees is “the light of dead stars,” the echoes of an exis­tence long gone.

Jed is eager to test out his new state of being and his bizarre behav­iour gets him beat­en up and arrest­ed, since he is now indif­fer­ent to per­son­al dan­ger. All that remains of Jed that is rec­og­niz­ably human is a strong bio­log­i­cal urge for sex. His new state of indif­fer­ence, com­bined with the strange alien ener­gy that moves through him, gives him pow­ers of seduc­tion that verge on the super­nat­ur­al. Women both high and low can­not resist him. As Jed’s sex­u­al trysts mount, so do the bod­ies. When Jed meets Illiana, a young woman trapped with her abu­sive par­ents, his state of enlight­ened indif­fer­ence begins to crum­ble, and he is moved to try to save her.

Link’s asso­ciates mean­while think he is on a wild goose chase. “Extra-con­sen­su­al” researcher and police psy­chol­o­gist, and Link’s ex-lover, Eve­lyn Palmer is con­cerned about Link’s men­tal health, but also curi­ous about the case. As the anom­alies mul­ti­ply, in a series of inter­ro­ga­tions with the sus­pect, Link’s sense of real­i­ty starts to unravel. 

For all inquiries, con­tact: landmadefilms[at]proton.me