Category: Steampunk Video

Vote for “The Deadliest Game” in Your Film Festival Competition

You have a chance to help out a Steampunk compatriot! The Deadliest Game, a film by Dr. Grordbort (aka Greg Broadmore), is a semi-finalist in YouTube’s Your Film Festival competition. The film is a witty short that not only plays to the Steampunk tropes, but sends them up as well. The last line alone is a wonder of Steampunk satire.

The finalists in the competition get to take their film to the Venice Film Festival and the winner gets “a $500,000 grant, to create a new original work with Ridley Scott and Michael Fassbender to make their dream film.” Let’s help out a fellow Steampunk enthusiast and vote for Dr. Grordbort’s film.

(more…)

Governess Sara Reine’s Cinematic Steampunk Primer for Ignorant Schoolchildren

A Guest Post by Sara Reine

Good morning, children. I am ever so thrilled to be with you today. Please bring out your slates, because it’s time for our history lesson.

Despite being such a popular subculture that we could simply describe it as “culture,” steampunk remains distant enough from the mainstream that bringing uneducated minds current on the subject is a difficult task.

We may find the origins of the steampunk genre early in the 1800’s century with the fine works of Jules Verne, but many modern men are miscreants with no time for literature, and we must find some other point of reference in the genre to establish a platform for discussion.

Instead, we shall take a romp through cinematic history to find the origins of steampunk likely to be known by beslubbering, barely-literate rascals. Many ignorant of the genre may be surprised to find themselves to already be aficionados!

(more…)

Cast the Boneshaker Movie

If you haven’t heard yet, Cherie Priest’s novel Boneshaker is headed for the big screen thanks to Hammer Films. This is great news, as the book is wonderful (and was picked as our 2010 Book of the Year).

So, let’s have some fun. Who would you cast in the different roles?

Here are a dozen main(ish) characters to get you started, but feel free to suggest choices for minor characters.

• Leviticus Blue
• Briar Wilkes
• Zeke Wilkes
• Maynard Wilkes
• Alaister Mayhem Osterude (Rudy)
• Princess Angeline
• Jeremiah Swakhammer
• Lucy O’Gunning
• Yaozu
• Minnericht
• Andan Cly
• Croggon Beauregard Hainey

I’ll kick things off with a few suggestions:

(more…)

PBS Takes on Steampunk

So, PBS has decided to give us their take on Steampunk in the latest installment of Off Book. PBS Arts’s Off Book is a “web series focused on experimental and non-traditional art form,” so it is certainly an appropriate forum for steampunk to be discussed. Their brief documentary gives a nice look at steampunk aesthetics, especially as applied to craft, music, and performance. It is unfortunate that the literature that gave birth to the movement is not discussed, but that may lie outside of the Off Book‘s core focus (although why literature would not be part of “arts” is beyond me). Regardless, it is nice to see steampunk getting some wider attention.

Here’s the documentary; let me know what you think.

Steampunk Musketeers: A Bad Thing?

The good news is that there is another movie this summer with steampunk elements! The bad news is, well, take a look, starting about 48 seconds in:

Yes, that is an airship battle, and it even looks somewhat cool. Heck, the adventure of Alexander Dumas with the coolness of steampunk sounds like its made of win, right?

Not necessarily. My problem is not with the steampunkification of Dumas, so much as it looks like there was inadequate thought put into it.

(more…)