Thursday, September 04, 2014

Honourable Mention: Airship Dracula (episode 1)

I have only found one episode of the web serial Airship Dracula, which was directed by Mike Roberts, and I don’t know if more are to follow but I was rather taken with it and so thought I’d post.

This is set in a steampunk world where the steam powered computing engines were invented and then starting communicating wirelessly to create the aethernet. Despite the leaps and bounds in technology, we discover that the dark grip of superstition can still hold sway.

hovering over Harker
The episode starts with Jonathon Harker and others in a speeding carriage. They shoot at something, a fast moving cloud with red points like eyes. It swoops, killing the men with ease, ignoring Harker’s cross and wrecking the carriage. A steam powered truck comes along and a shadowy figure throws the broken body of Harker into a box the truck carries.

Bridge of the Demeter
Amelia Swansmith (Tammin Sursok) has arrived at the Orient Air Express to ride the airship Demeter. The Captain, Dziga (Alan Tudyk), invites her to the bridge but a disturbance in the hold gets their attention (albeit the reluctant attention of Dziga). A crew member is trying to throw a box out of the hold. When he is prevented from doing so he throws himself from the moving airship rather than be placed in the brig…

And there is little else but it is 8 minutes of inventive and brilliantly animated fun. I hope this does expand into a full series (and look forward to reviewing it if it does). In the meantime you can see the episode over at Vimeo. The imdb page is here.

No comments: