MovieChat Forums > The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (2003) Discussion > Dear Mr. Edward Martin III (Yes another ...

Dear Mr. Edward Martin III (Yes another comment)

posted 17 years ago by [email protected]
6 replies | jump to latest

First of all, thanks forkeeping in touch on this site and getting right to the fan base. It's admiral.

I'm a film student and big Lovecraft fan. I'm an even bigger fan of The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath. I just watched your DVD. Kudos.

The Dream Quest has always been the one of the few Lovecraft books that I wanted to see into a movie. Granted, I would like my shot at a live action version of the story. Of course, as you know, it would cost a boat load of cash.

If you don't mind, I'd like to ask you a question.

It seemed like all of the voices, albeit faithful to Lovecraft's dialogue, seemed a little too human? Why did you choose this?

[–] EdwardMartinIII 17 years ago

"It seemed like all of the voices, albeit faithful to Lovecraft's dialogue, seemed a little too human? Why did you choose this?"

Well, the human voices should have been human.

I'm guessing you're talking about how the ghouls sound, or the cats or the zoogs.

We DID think about doing some sort of voice acting for that, or possibly digitally fiddling with the voices to make them "ghoulish", "cattish" or "Zoogish", but instead, we reasoned this way:

To a cat, we're just tall hooting things, but to each other, we have distinctive voices and sound perfectly normal. So, the way I figured it, although cats sound high-pitched and meowie to us, to each other, they sound perfectly normal. Just like Zoogs and ghouls. Perfectly normal to each other.

So, every time someone starts off in one of those languages, we start the meowing or the growling or the wibbling sound FIRST, then we crossfade into the English, as if you are hearing raw Zoog at first, but your brain adjusts and you hear Zoog as if spoken by one Zoog to another. In other words, perfectly good English. As we leave the language, we crossfade back into the human-o-centric sound of it.

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http://www.Guerrilla-Productions.org/
"Been there, shot that."

[–] EdwardMartinIII 16 years ago

And yes, I would LOVE to do this as a live action movie. I'd jigger with the script a bit, but very much would love to do this live action.

In a heartbeat.

Know anyone interested in producing...? ;)

Cheers,

Edward

-
http://www.Guerrilla-Productions.org/
"Been there, shot that."

[–] GreyHunter 9 years ago

Man...a live-action version of any quality would be insanely expensive and pretty long if anyone hopes to capture the sense of proportion inherent in the Dreamlands. And it would have to have some major scriptwork to make it workable on film because, while I love the story beyond measure and genuinely appreciate this particular animated production, it's pretty much an epic written as a summary. Even this particular animated feature manages to be 100 minutes long and that's without actual motion sequences to stretch out the running time. No dialogue, lots of fast-paced plot transition covering days and weeks in the space of a few sentences, and the usual Lovecraftian touches of conveying horror with a certain sense of abstraction (though not as blatantly as in his more horror-oriented works.) The CGI alone would require some technical wizardry just to convey the surreality of many of the settings.

I was quite disappointed that del Toro's "At the Mountains of Madness" fell into development hell. But I'd forget my disappointment in a heartbeat if we got a "Dreamquest" live-action.

[–] EdwardMartinIII 9 years ago

So... you think we oughtta consider crowdfunding that puppy? ;)

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http://www.hellbendermedia.com/

[–] GreyHunter 9 years ago

Well, I have a shiny nickel I could contribute. I have some polish, so I can get it shinier if that'll help. :-)

Seriously, if it could be feasibly done, I'd love the idea. I'm just concerned that ingenuity has its limits when it comes to creating the scope of the Dreamlands. A lot can be done with clever camera-work, enthusiastic direction, ad hoc special effects, skilled cinematography, and good old-fashioned elbow grease -- after looking at your website, I guess I'm preaching to the choir here -- but I'm dubious that something with The Dream-Quest's scope could be properly done without a significant budget. The plateau and monastery of Leng, Ngranek, Kadath, Dylath-Leen, the city under the water, Celephais, Inganok, Sarkamand, clipper ships sailing to the moon, the moon-beast town, the city of the Gugs, the ghouls and ghasts and nightgaunts and zoogs (I almost typed 'droogs' because "Clockwork Orange" has sunk its tendrils into the world)...I can see one or two of them being pulled off by a clever filmmaker, but there are just so many aspects of the quest that would need to be covered that I'm just pessimistic about doing so without a huge budget. And a huge budget isn't likely to happen for a property like this. The built-in fanbase is comparatively small, and most of that centers around the Cthulhu mythos, so I doubt a major studio would touch the property. Crowdfunding is a nice development of our times, but has never managed to reach the levels of studio-funding for major blockbusters.

I know I sound pessimistic, so I should acknowledge that I'm not a film-maker, nor have I ever really aspired to be one, so my opinion is worth no more than that of any other dedicated fan of the source material. If I'm being honest, deep down, I'm hoping for a Peter Jackson "Lord of the Rings" type treatment and I realize I'm being ridiculously demanding even as I type those words out.

[–] EdwardMartinIII 9 years ago

Well, you make all very good points.

I think at this stage, if I wanted to do "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" as a live action movie, I would be looking seriously at a combination of miniature work and CG for the really tricky bits.

Pretty much the instant Jurassic Park came out, the bar for realistic CG animation has been raised to "visually believable."

The real trick -- as you surmise -- is to figure out the funding and nail it.

If I were to just blue-sky, though...

...and this is off the top of my head...

...I'd consider thinking of doing it as a series of episodes. Either 22 minutes or 45 minutes for each episode, and maybe 6-12 episodes. It's a REALLY big story -- so I would expect it to take a long time to tell properly.

The advantage to this is that each episode can have its own funding.

In fact, I'd go a little further and even explore the Dreamlands more in-depth if I had that kind of stretching room. I'd spend a little time in the beginning of the Ulthar section exploring Ulthar and it's peculiar history, etc.

The Dreamlands are quite massive and a series of (for example) 12 45-minute episodes exploring the Dreamlands and in particular following Carter's quest would be an AMAZING project to plan and build!