About this project
BLOOD MACHINES - Turbo Killer 2
€185,133
3,307
UPDATES
Jan 5th: Characters figures unlocked
Jan 4th: VR Experience #2 revealed: inside the cockpit of the Tracy!
Jan. 3th: New exclusive special Art Book available
Jan. 2nd: A piece of the Tracy spaceship unlocked as new reward
Dec. 28th: Stretch Goal #3 unlocked & Mima Model now available
Dec. 26th: Add-Ons
Dec 22th: David Sandberg ('KUNG FURY') joins BLOOD MACHINES!
Dec. 22th: Stretch Goal #2 unlocked & VR Video #1 revealed
Dec. 20th: 100,000 Euros and 2,000 backers, Christmas offers revealed
Dec. 16th: Stretch Goals revealed
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Inspired by the spirit of the 80's films and music, BLOOD MACHINES is a 30-minutes science-fiction short film written and directed by Seth Ickerman, scored by the synthwave artist Carpenter Brut. BLOOD MACHINES is the sequel of the music video TURBO KILLER, their first collaboration.
Two space hunters are tracking down a machine trying to free itself. After taking it down, they witness a mystical phenomenon: the ghost of a young woman pulls itself out of the machine, as if the spaceship had a soul. Trying to understand the nature of this entity, they start chasing the woman through space...
Follow BLOOD MACHINES on: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
We love the music videos from the 80’s so much - thanks to artists like Michael Jackson - that we find it hard to get excited about today's music clips, which tend to be formatted promotional tools.
United by our passion for the 80's, we naturally met with Carpenter Brut and gave birth to the clip of our dreams: TURBO KILLER. Only a small piece of a bigger project, TURBO KILLER laid the foundation of a universe that BLOOD MACHINES will continue to explore.
BLOOD MACHINES will be more ambitious than our first collaboration. For TURBO KILLER, we used a rather classical music video structure. For BLOOD MACHINES, we would like to get closer to a cinematic narrative and develop a film structured around musical sections.
In a mix of genres inspired by many Sci-Fi and horror films from the 80’s, BLOOD MACHINES will have more density. We want to take the audience to a universe filled with adventures, epic images and musical action scenes - and by doing so, offer them a true spectacle!!!
As we experience the ever-growing interdependence between man and machine, our connection to machines is increasingly filled with emotions.
With the development of artificial intelligence, machines can now have complex behavior. Some people imagine that machines have a conscience and the more spiritual will believe they have a soul.
BLOOD MACHINES will deal with this universal theme. Even though these questions have been treated many times before, they are now more relevant than ever.
At the time of his death, Roy Batty, the replicant from Blade Runner, lets a dove fly away. As a symbol of his soul, the bird takes off to the sky. This poetic moment perfectly illustrates the beginning of our film. In a metaphoric way, BLOOD MACHINES begins where Blade Runner leaves off.
Determined to follow the dove, our heroes will start a journey through the skies, which quickly fall into darkness --- tormented by the devilish music from Carpenter Brut!!!
MIMA
Present in TURBO KILLER, Mima is the female ghost escaping from the machine, leading the space hunters' chase. She is a breathtakingly beautiful creature, transfigured by an unreal sensuality with graceful gestures.
VASCAN
Captain of the spaceship, Vascan is a "blade runner" who tracks down machines taken over by its artificial intelligence. In his 40's, he can be quite brutal as he takes pleasure in abusing and humiliating the machines.
When the story takes a supernatural turn, his rational personality prevents him from having any fear. An ambitious and talented hunter, he will not hesitate to risk it all in order to reach his goal.
LAGO
Lago is the partner of Vascan in the spaceship. In his late 60's, with a big white beard and a face wrinkled by the passing of time, Lago is a veteran full of wisdom and empathy.
As a mechanic, he looks after the machines and develops a special relationship with them. Lago is a sensitive man inclined to spirituality. At the end of his life, he wonders about the afterlife.
CORE
Coré is a strange priestess who protects the machines. She leads a group of priestesses with an iron fist. Still, behind angelic features, Coré may hide a part of darkness.
???
Let’s keep it mysterious !
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Released in February 2016, TURBO KILLER generated close to 2,000,000 views and thousands of positive comments. Independently produced in over 6 months, Carpenter Brut’s music video had many fans requesting a movie version. A desire shared by Seth Ickerman as the two French directors always considered TURBO KILLER as the segment of a larger work that could become a feature film.
THE MUSIC VIDEO
THE VFX BEHIND THE SCENES
THE MEDIA FEEDBACK
"Holy fuck. This may be my favorite video of 2016 and we’ve still got over half the year to go!" - Bloody Disgusting
"This is absolutely fantastic stuff and should those involved ever have the urge to expand it out you can be damn sure I'd drop my money to watch that film" - Screen Anarchy
"Usually, we do not post music videos, but this video is that awesome" - Hell Horror
"Rosemary's Baby meets Tron" - Movie Pilot
"One of the coolest and most epic music video of all time" - Geeks Are Sexy
"Turbo Killer is a shot to the technofuturist's heart" - The Creator's Project / Vice
« You are crazy! ». That’s the answer we received when we started pitching BLOOD MACHINES. Why? « Because there is no business model for such short films. » « Synthwave is a small phenomenon » « It's way too ambitious » But we decided to try anyway. And as we wrote the script and designed the world of BLOOD MACHINES, it turned out to be possible...
Traditional investments come with conditions and one of them is giving away creative control. We want to retain control on BLOOD MACHINES. We know what the film has to be and we need to be able to set a certain ambition with our own vision. Our first goal is to produce a 30-minutes short film but, depending on the success of the Kickstarter campaign, we are open to go further with a Virtual Reality (VR) experience in addition to the classic version - and, maybe, a full length feature à la Interstella 5555 by Daft Punk.
Producing such an ambitious short today is almost impossible based on the music and film industries' standards. As synthwave is labelled as a fringe retro movement, it's complicated to raise funding from traditional sources. The industry starts to understand the revival of the 80's but they want to see big names attached (such as actors) and we remain young directors.
That's why Kickstarter is the best way to get people interested and involved in BLOOD MACHINES. It's the direct link between the filmmaking process and those who might be interested in participating.
That's why we need your support as you have the power to change this. Sometimes we feel alone in our garage but we know you are around, sharing like us an intense love for the 80's!
For each backer, we've put together and designed a special series of goodies to tempt you, from special production news access, limited edition posters and T-Shirts, special screenings and original artwork to wine and cheese parties in our Montmartre mansion. That's a joke – we are still living in a garage and it may be too small to party...
Find out more about the rewards on the panel to the right. More rewards may come soon during the campaign. Besides unique rewards such as adding your name in the movie or in the credits in a cool fashion, we are also offering a day on set where you will get an all-access tour and meet the team during the shooting of this crazy ambitious sci-fi piece. At the same time, you can also enjoy visiting Paris and France – not too bad!
Build your own perfect reward package with these add-ons!
You can add one additional item to your pledge level by simply choosing an amount to add and answer a survey at the end of the campaign to let us know what item you want.
Only 2 rules:
- you can only add one add-on item to your pledge
- the add-ons can only be added to 45 Euros rewards or above. In other words, the minimum pledge for reward + add-on is of 90 Euros)
Choose from the following items and follow the instructions bellow:
Add-ons instructions: To add an add-on to your pledge, follow those steps:
1) Press the “Manage Your Pledge” button above. If you have not pledged yet, it will say “Back this Project”.
2) Increase your pledge in the “Pledge Amount” box by the total of the add-on you want to add (you can add a maximum of 1 add-ons item).
3) After the end of the Kickstarter campaign you will receive a survey that will ask you questions so that you can explain how you would like the add-on money assigned.
The production of BLOOD MACHINES will involve building sets such as the interiors of the spaceships. Even if we will shoot our film with a minimal crew and equipment, we will have to hire a talented team of production designers and VFX artists.
It's clearly time for us to leave our garage as we want to work with other great artists instead of doing everything on our own for months (TURBO KILLER) or years (KAYDARA).
The amount we are asking for this campaign will provide us with enough funds to cover pre-production, the shooting and possibly start the VFX (at least the previz). We'll surround ourselves with an experienced team to prepare the shooting well. It's how we will be able to contain costs in the long run.
Compared to TURBO KILLER, we want to maximize real sets over the use of green screen so we can maximize the performance of the actors on screen. Your support will also help hire talented actors.
Costs will also go to the rewards you deserve, such as printing costs for posters, t-shirts, blu-rays etc. And shipping all these top rewards to your house!
Putting BLOOD MACHINES on Kickstarter is a way to give everyone an opportunity to get involved. It was born on the internet with the interest behind TURBO KILLER. Without your support, BLOOD MACHINES would not be here. No matter the outcome, we just want to say thank you to everyone who took the time to watch our work and support us.
SETH ICKERMAN
We are two French directors based in Paris, working for more than 10 years under the pseudonym of Seth Ickerman. We started with the long short film KAYDARA, inspired by The Matrix’s universe. Produced with limited budget, KAYDARA attracted a large audience when we released it online. Since then, we worked on various projects as directors for companies like LG, Ubisoft and Samsung, and directed the music video TURBO KILLER in 2016 for Carpenter Brut. We are now developing our first science-fiction feature film ICKERMAN: we released online a proof of concept early this year which received more than 1,500,000 views online.
Follow us on: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Vimeo | Youtube
THE PROOF OF CONCEPT OF ICKERMAN
CARPENTER BRUT
In 2012, Carpenter Brut releases EP I. His success was striking, especially with the music video Le Perv, a tribute to Fabio Fulci and the 80's slashers. After EP II, marked by Roller Mobster, Carpenter releases EP III closing his trilogy. Turbo Killer is part of this last opus and Seth Ickerman’s music video is a true synthesis of Carpenter Brut’s universe, developed through the three albums.
Carpenter Brut was influenced by many 80's TV shows and B-movies stuffed with synthesizers. Surrounded with mystery, the man represented by a Pentagon is paying a homage to the post-hippies, metal and electro culture, with a unique and striking sound. One of the leaders of the retro new wave, his music is also present in many famous video games such as Furi, Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number and The Crew (Ubisoft).
Follow Carpenter Brut on: Facebook | Twitter | Deezer | Youtube
LOGICAL PICTURES
Logical Pictures is a production company created in 2016 by Yannick Bossenmeyer, Frédéric Fiore and Alexis Perrin. Their mandate is to finance and produce a slate of elevated genre films with high international market potential, focusing on promising talent within a virtuous economic logic. Financed by a pool of private investors, Logical Pictures is currently co-producing AN INCIDENT IN A GHOST LAND by Pascal Laugier (Martyrs, The Tall Man). Logical Pictures has also a promising slate of feature films lined up for the coming including Seth Ickerman’s ICKERMAN, Fleur & Manu's WINTER'S END, Jean Luc Herbulot's CONGO and Simon Saulnier's CAPTURE.
RUMBLE FISH PRODUCTIONS
Rumble Fish is a production company created by Alexis Perrin, former Production Executive at French Visual Effects House BUF (Thor, The Grandmaster, Nymph()maniac, Life of Pi). His focus is to develop and produce elevated genre films with a arthouse sensibility and a unique visual style destined to an international audience. Besides BLOOD MACHINES, Alexis is currently involved on CITIES OF LAST THINGS by Wi Ding Ho, DÖNER by Jean Luc Herbulot (Dealer) and Seth Ickerman’s ICKERMAN.
DAVID SANDBERG (Executive Producer)
David Sandberg is a Swedish filmmaker with years of experience in directing television commercials and music videos. In 2012, he quit the commercial industry and focused on writing a script for an action comedy film set in the 1980s, inspired by films of that era: Kung Fury. The film become a world-success premiering in Cannes Film Festival and was later released on Netflix.
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Risks and challenges
BLOOD MACHINES is a challenging project as we want to create a great story with a certain scale. As it's quite ambitious, it needs some important financial investment. But we remain a highly motivated team as you can see from our previous projects. We’ve created TURBO KILLER and the proof of concept of ICKERMAN on our own. Making BLOOD MACHINES is really important as it's time for us to leave our garage and prove we can handle bigger projects without compromising on our vision.
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Funding period
- (35 days)