KUNG FURY Helmer Signs On To BLOOD MACHINES
If you - like me - are among those who were wildly impressed by French duo Seth Ickerman's retro-futurist music video Turbo Killer and have been eagerly awaiting their reunion with musical act Carpenter Brut for their expanded sequel, Blood Machines, well ... things just got a whole lot more interesting.
We wrote about the Blood Machines Kickstarter campaign - set up to raise the funds to go push the length of the sequel up to thirty minutes while also greatly increasing the scope of things - a couple weeks back and the good news comes first with word that they have already exceeded their goal with that. And what does that mean? It means we're getting more ... more may mean a further expansion to feature length or it may mean a VR experience to tie in to the short but it definitely means MORE. How much more really depends on how much the Kickstarter ultimately raises.
And then there's this: The French filmmaking duo have caught the eye of Kung Fury helmer David Sandberg, himself no stranger to crowdfunding for VFX heavy retro throwbacks. And Sandberg is so impressed with their work that he has officially signed on as an executive producer for the project. Here's the official word:
DAVID SANDBERG (DIRECTOR OF 'KUNG FURY')
JOINS THE TEAM OF FRENCH SCI-FI SHORT 'BLOOD MACHINES'
Paris, France – David Sandberg, the Swedish director of the acclaimed short film Kung Fury, has come aboard as an executive producer on Blood Machines by Seth Ickerman, a French director duo composed of Raphaël Hernandez and Savitri Joly-Gonfard.
Following two space hunters chasing the female ghost of a machine through the galaxy, Blood Machines is a 30-minutes Sci-Fi short and the sequel of music video Turbo Killer by synthwave artist Carpenter Brut.
Currently campaigning on Kickstarter since Dec. 1st, Seth Ickerman already reached his goal after only two weeks. Now passed 100,000 Euros, the French team would like to reach bigger objectives and expand Blood Machines into a Virtual Reality experience (in addition to the short version) or a feature film à la Interstella 5555 by Daft Punk.
Seduced by the world of Blood Machines, David Sandberg reached out to Seth Ickerman in the early days of the campaign. As they share the same do it yourself approach and passion for the 80's movies, a collaboration soon appears to be a logical move.
“Seth Ickerman are hands down some of the most talented and exciting visual artists I’ve come across. Each of their frames are gorgeous, show a painstaking attention to detail, and most of all, an undeniable love for movies. I can’t wait to see these guys get their shot to tell this story ”, said David Sandberg.
As synthwave music and retro films are labelled as fringe movements, which limit the traditional sources of financing, David Sandberg and Seth Ickerman decided to pull together and “cross the streams” to make such an ambitious project happen. Blood Machines remains quite bold for a short film while it needs to remain independent and true to the director‘s vision.
“Bringing David on board is a natural association for us after ten years in our garage. He went through the same process and what he did on Kickstarter with Kung Fury and later on with the distribution is a true reference for us in terms of maintaining the creative control of his film, while reaching out to a world audience and bridging the garage and professional mindsets. We are really happy that he's joining our team in this exciting adventure!”, said Seth Ickerman.
After raising $630,000 on Kickstarter with Kung Fury, which premiered in Cannes and was released on Netflix, Sandberg will be bringing his experience to a production team composed of Frederic Fiore and Alexis Perrin. Focused on elevated genre movies, their venture Logical Pictures is currently co-producing An Incident in A Ghost Land by Pascal Laugier (Martyrs, The Tall Man), and has several films lined up – including Ickerman, the first feature film of Seth Ickerman.
