Ben X tells the story of Ben, a Flemish teen with Asperger Syndrome who escapes the troubles of life by playing an MMORPG called ArchLord (which is apparently a real game, making its inclusion in the movie a rather dubious bit of product placement. Even more dubious is the fact that it is apparently terrible.) The movie’s opening credits use the game’s UI as a template, and within the film itself to draw comparisons to the structured nature of Ben’s daily routine and the grind of playing the game and leveling up. It is in this game that Ben meets the only person he feels he can connect to, a female player who goes by the username Scarlite.
But I don’t have new picture, or a new video (at least not one that I’m willing to show just yet without some major overhauls). I do have a story, but it needs some polishing, and I want to do a few illustrations for it, so maybe next week, or the week after.
I’m currently beleaguered by a 3D modeling assignment and 3DS Max is being a pain in the posterior. It has little to do with technical limitations or bugs, however. I’m just having a hard time molding the little dots and lines into something worth showing people.
So, having nothing to show for the moment, I dug out this cheesy looking mock movie poster I did for a class I took on film production. It was a pretty interesting class that took us through the steps of conceptualizing a movie, writing a treatment, working out a budget, and pitching it to a studio. Here:
That’s so 1990’s direct to video, right? Yeah? Damn, I was fishing for compliments by being self deprecating. That backfired, didn’t it? Now I’m being all meta and shit.
Anyway, I decided to do mine as an adaptation of a video game I like called, “The Longest Journey.” It’s one of those properties that’s half a movie anyway, and seems like a no-brainer to translate to the screen. And while the game itself isn’t really aimed at the YA crowd, you could easily market it that way, which is pretty much a license to print money. Unless you’re Lemony Snickett. Or Spiderwick. Or that one movie that had Al Swearengen in it as a kind of Obi Wan, mentor type figure. Or…damn. It seems I’ve underestimated the YA crowd.
I’m kind of wishing I hadn’t brought that movie up now. At least I didn’t mention Pirates 4…ah, #@$!
Of course, taking that route would likely alienate fans of the game. All twenty of us. Just kidding. I’m sure we’re in the hundreds or something.
Blackwood Empire 