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Snatcher fan film, filmmaker wants thoughts -see credentials

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2012 11:20 am
by stuntpeople
My name's Eric Jacobus (IMDB), filmmaker, actor, and stuntman of 12 years, and a life-long, hardcore Snatcher fan ever since I bought the Sega CD version off my friend for ten bucks in 1995. It's criminal nobody seems to have taken a shot at this yet, but there seem to be no noteworthy Snatcher fan films out there. So here's me putting my name in the hat: I wanna make a Snatcher fan film. Having seen so many pet projects rise and fall through the years, I'd hate to waste my time hyping up something that never actually happens, so here's my categorized list of thoughts as to how we'd make Snatcher into a film:

- A script that remains true to the original material. We're talking about pleasing fans, not remaking the story. If the project is fan-funded, it will be made to please fans, simple as that, not some "re-imagining" of the concept. At 90-120 minutes, I can see a 6-hour adventure game fitting entirely within the scope of a film script. Plus it saves me the hassle of reinventing the wheel: the game's already got a great script with three distinct acts.

- Talented actors. The beauty of Snatcher was the character immersion, which won't happen if we're using our friends and family as the main players. We'd hire some good talent to make the story work, make them all watch the game, and get it as authentic as possible.

- Amazing action. The game's not heavy on action, but it has to be pristine, and action is one of my strong suits. I'm imagining something along the lines of History of Violence, where there's some action, and all of it is exceptionally good.

- Top-of-the-line special effects. Heads breaking open, decapitated bodies, the dead dog, squibs, explosions, and muzzle flashes or blanks. It's all gotta look authentic, again not like high school kids did it, and I'd rather go practical on as much as possible, rather than reaching for After FX for everything.

- Accurate production design. This is the most expensive and daunting task of recreating the Snatcher world. We need:
  • An effects team for transforming a city into Neo Kobe, not an easy task. Times Square might make a good template for where Gillian meets Napoleon, plus outside Outer Heaven.
    Prop design for the Turbocycle, blaster, and Metal Gear, along with all the other fun goods from the game.
    CG or stop motion (which is hip now, plus I know some animators from Coraline) for the Snatcher
    Locations, locations, locations. Junker HQ is a huge chunk of the story, and it's arguably the most high-tech location, along with the hospital and the final Snatcher lair. Finding these locations and making them look true to the game will be the bulk of the production budget
- Budget. Realistically we're not talking about a multi-million dollar production, more along the lines of a $100,000-$250,000 Kickstarter project. I think for that amount, plus hardcore dedication from fans (be extras in the film! etc.) we could do it. I'm not 100% certain the Snatcher community is vast enough to completely crowd-fund it, but it would be a dream if we could.

- The other stuff: a good music score (crowd-sourced? perhaps), PR campaign (game conventions, retro game mags, sci-fi media channels, celebrity hype, etc.), and distribution if it goes beyond the crowd funders, but this is not the goal. The goal is providing fans with the best Snatcher-like experience possible, not providing the mass market some tame, watered-down, PG-13 version.

Would like to hear all your thoughts. Are there similar plans in the making? All I know is a guy who's developing a Crysis plugin, but other than that I know of no efforts to make Snatcher into fan art. We won't look to Hollywood for this because either 1) they'd turn it down since it wouldn't be marketable enough or 2) they'd butcher it. Who knows, maybe Kojima could catch wind of it and sanction the thing like he did with Sdatcher.

Thanks everyone, looking forward to hearing from you.

Here are my credentials;

Our 13-minute detective action-drama (made for no budget), starring me: http://vimeo.com/27534105
The Stunt People (action team I founded in 2001)
Trailer to my film Death Grip - full-length 2012 action film, shot for $100,000 (DVD and Blu Ray here)
Knife fight from Death Grip
Hand Over Fist action film with some gunplay in beginning
Our YouTube channel

Re: Snatcher fan film, filmmaker wants thoughts -see credent

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2012 6:22 pm
by Artemio
Hello Eric, you've made a lot of good stuff there =) I really liked Ness, the pacing, the way flashbacks are restored to reality if even for a second. It really grabbed my attention, now I want to know what happens next.

It is improbable something like this can be funded by the community, at least by the involved community. The site (Junker HQ) has around 4K visitors a month, and that includes MG. These boards have 2.5K visitors a month, of which 70% are new every month; signifying they just come though a search engine for a specific thing, read and go. And as you have seen through the years only around 30 active ones.

The Sdatcher site had 533 visits, of which 43% were recurring form previous months.

I am giving you my real numbers for this month since they might help you in some way to figure out the demographics.

I must say that before watching your clips I wasn't too excited about it. It happens all the time, but you already know how your craft is done and want to seriously do it. It is a tough endeavor, and after watching them I do believe something can be made. I just don't know if the money can be gathered, and so many thing can go wrong in the way.

I just posted it in the Junker HQ news/feed page, and on my twitter account in order to gather some attention =)

Glad to hear you are interested in taking such a big risk/project, and actually happy to know a fellow fan with such background as yours.

Re: Snatcher fan film, filmmaker wants thoughts -see credent

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 1:39 pm
by slowbeef
Have you considered Kickstarter? I'd probably contribute.

Re: Snatcher fan film, filmmaker wants thoughts -see credent

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 3:13 pm
by stuntpeople
I have, but I wouldn't dive into that until I actually get some momentum on the idea. Seems a lot of Kickstarter projects die quickly because nobody knows about them until it's too late.

Re: Snatcher fan film, filmmaker wants thoughts -see credent

Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2012 10:26 pm
by AwesomeBrand
SDATCHER : The Motion Picture.
The first thing that came to mind today.