Going Wound and Wound

Want to make movies but have no actors and can't draw? Just use my method! For a decade and a half, I've been slowly collecting wind-up toys. Just occasionally, really. But lately I've increased the pace of my purchases, because I've decided the time has come to fulfill a long-held ambition: the making of a wind-up toy movie. Inspiring Toys

The idea was sparked by my purchase, many years ago, of some wind-ups that were on clearance at Toys R Us. They were of Marvel Comics characters, in the likeness of their cinematic versions at the time--Ben Affleck as Daredevil, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, Wesley Snipes as Blade, and a few others. They were pretty neat-looking, and I thought it would be cool to make a movie of them that would include audio clips of their dialogue from their respective films. I did a test video first, featuring a brief, 2-or-3-minute conflict between Daredevil and Bullseye (played by Colin Farrell). They encountered each other and then ran--well, walked--at each other. Without my help, Daredevil knocked Bullseye over. It was a perfect end to the "fight." I laid a few short bits of dialogue over the video and then put it in black and white with a simple rain effect, to cover up the deficiencies in my videography. The result was cute and satisfying. Then I did nothing else with it. Unfortunately my attention is often drawn away to other interests, like a child who spies a shiny new bauble. But the idea of that team-up movie stayed in the back of my mind, and when I saw a cool, cheap wind-up toy, I bought it and stored it away. New Decade, New Motivation It's 2020, and I've now got a house with enough rooms for one to be an office where I can create--be it stories, art, animation, or movies. I don't recall what activated the internal furnace that began heating up the desire to finally do the wind-up movie, but I found myself suddenly trawling eBay for clockwork toys to fill out the cast of the vague story I was developing in my head.

The tale is nothing too epic. There has to be a break-in at a military science lab, a plane crash, a trap at a haunted house, a storming of the villain's Arctic HQ, and a climactic royal rescue at an amusement park, plus a cliffhanger ending involving Martian invaders. You know, a little story. Solo Acts During this process, I got the idea that it would be cool to imitate the Marvel Cinematic Universe method and make some short films focusing on each of the heroes that will make up the superteam. One of the genius things about the 2012 Avengers flick was that the center of it was the meeting and interaction of characters we had already gotten to know in their solo films. So, I'll have Wolverine, the Punisher, Spider-Man, and the other guys (unfortunately, they're all guys) go on their own adventures before teaming up. Then the "feature" film, currently to be called We're Not The Avengers, will be something of a spectacle. Getting the Voices on Track

Another part of the scheme that's changed is the audio track. As my brother advised me, the choice of dialogue from movie audio clips would be very limited, because I wouldn't want any that have sound effects or music behind them. So, instead, I'll take advantage of my pool of old acting cronies for voiceovers, and my bro will supplement those with his own acquaintances. Sound too ambitious? It's possible. My stories often metastasize from something small into an unwieldy behemoth. But I'm excited about this project, and I hope that will carry me through. We'll see.

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