Metal World
"The Industrial Revolution gets personal for a farmer in this man vs machine stopmotion epic."
Design Storyboard Studio Production photos Film clips Script Reviews Credits
Metal World was my major film project at the Victorian College of the Arts. I am a bit of a history buff and I am particularly interested in the 19th century Victorian era, and the advent of the industrial revolution. The steam engine, smoke stacks, steam trains etc. are visually interesting compared to the sterile clean box like machines of today. Farmers were forced to go to the city for work and vast railway networks spread spider-like across the countryside with the vast sprawling factories and cities following them. Whole country sides were transformed from green pastures to dark grey slag heaps. In Metal World the social and technological phenomena of the industrial revolution is given a more sentient form, as the machine actively seeks out the farmer and hunts him down, bringing him inside the machine and transforming into a automaton.
Once inside the machine he is resigned to his fate until memories of his past life resurface, which distract him, and ultimately release him from his imprisonment. The films ends happily as the farmer is reunited with his trusty sheepdog, but the destruction of his countryside is everywhere and the farmer is left the task of rebuilding of his world.
I planned this film to be a lot darker than my previous films and with plenty of action. I also wanted the film to be on a grander scale with towering machines and vast idyllic landscapes.