It’s been known for quite a while that YouTube is the up and coming platform when it comes to original works by professionals in the industry. After all, Tom Hanks, Stan Lee, Felicity Day and even Joss Whedon have all turned their talents towards the web without the bothersome constricts of a big name studio to control their creativity. Now you can add Ridley Scott to that list as it has been announced that Scott’s company, Ridley Scott and Associates, will be partnering up with Machinima to produce 12 sci-fi shorts exclusively for the internet.Machinima should be a familiar name as they have been the YouTube channel best known for showing popular web series such as ‘Mortal Kombat: Legacy’, ‘Halo: Forward unto Dawn’ and most recently ‘Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome’.
Of the partnership, Scott commented:
“RSA has always been at the forefront of creating innovative work. With new media transforming the way audiences connect with films and filmmakers, Machinima is a great partner for us as we embark on this new model of delivering original content to fans. It’s a tremendous opportunity for pushing the creative boundaries for both our filmmakers and the audience.”
What makes the partnership exciting is that not only will Scott personally executive produce the shorts, filmmakers for the sci-fi short film series will come from Scott’s impressive RSA roster. With more than 80 directors on the list including Joe Carnaham (‘The Grey’, ‘The A-Team’), Kathryn Bigelow (‘The Hurt Locker’, ‘Zero Dark Thirty’), Martin Scorsese (‘Hugo’), Neill Blomkamp (‘Elysium’, ‘District 9’) and Sam Mendes (‘Skyfall’), there is no shortage of talent and the expectations of what will be seen on the YouTube channel is very high indeed. Of course, RSA may surprise everyone and choose an aspiring director who has yet to prove themselves to the studios but shows a lot of promise.
In the press release, RSA President Jules Daly had this to say about the project:
“There is a plethora of great talent here and sometimes they don’t have a platform for great ideas that would work well in shorts. It could be an established director wanting to try something new, or a brilliant young director from Sweden who surprises us. This is the future, it’s new territory we believe we must investigate.”
While the exact content, format or who will be directing each short wasn’t revealed, the concept of highly talented directors given the ability to try out new sci-fi ideas is exciting! Both RSA and Machinima are hoping to develop the most successful of these short films into a big screen project which could theoretically become the next new sci-fi franchise.
Whatever the case, one thing that is known for certain is that the focus of the short films will be on building “original high octane science fiction content” and that alone makes me want to head over to Machinima and bookmark their channel.
The press statement didn’t mention any timetables as to when viewers can expect the first of the 12 short films to emerge, so keep checking back here on ScienceFiction.com because once we know, we’ll let you know!
