Tears of Steel (Sci-Fi Short) / Blender Foundation

For Tears of Steel the funding target was to explore a complete open source pipeline for producing a high quality visual effect film, with as theme “Science Fiction in Amsterdam”.

Producer Ton Roosendaal invited young Seattle talent Ian Hubert to come working in Amsterdam for 7 months to write and direct the film – assisted in Blender Institute’s studio by an international team of 3d and vfx artists, and with a Dutch film crew and Dutch actors.

The film’s premise is about a group of warriors and scientists, who gathered at the “Oude Kerk” in Amsterdam to stage a crucial event from the past, in a desperate attempt to rescue the world from destructive robots.

Tears of Steel is an exquisite corpse of sorts…of computer generated, science fiction filmmaking. While the open source manner of testing yielded a narrative that is somewhat disjointed and incoherent, the resultant final short has some breathtaking imagery in parts. It is, after all, a cool experiment in developing virtual effects software which happens to garner some stunning moving images. It is recommended viewing as it shows the potential of what you can do when it comes to making big effects films, without much of a budget, outside of Hollywood. Well played,

–@teemunny

Produced by Ton Roosendaal
Director and Written by Ian Hubert
Director of Photography: Joris Kerbosch
Composer: Joram LetworyStarring: Derek de Lint, Sergio Hasselbaink, Rogier Schippers, Vanja Rukavina, Denise Rebergen, Jody Bhe, Chris Haley