Film Project:
Guern of Atlantis History and Origins
Once upon a time, a man named Len Bretel from the fair Isle of Guernsey answered an enquiry I placed on a website regarding a batch of songs I had sent off to America. It was nice of him to help a stranger, so I emailed him back to thank him for the information he'd supplied.
There was something about his little email quips that made me immediately realise that he was probably just as deranged as me - and so the emails continued and a friendship was born.
Like you do, (as soon as the women are out of earshot) we started talking about pirates, cartoons, stories, a robot dolphin named Blinky with built in 'terror mode' facilities. (He can change the shape of his dorsal fin to that of a shark to circle evil overboard pirates and scare them half to death) -- The usual fodder of children with twisted minds.
Len and I had something else in common - Neither of us know what he's talking about!
Soon I had decided (after listening to his CD 'Fast Rewind') that he had the perfect writing style and voice for a pirate kids animation series and so we started to discuss and draw characters and plots from a completely comic standpoint.
There was a one legged enemy of pirates - an inventor named Gurn who's every design was fuelled by (Ugh!) Gurnpowder.... including the rocket pulse jet hidden inside his (metal) wooden leg that enabled him to fly from the deck of his 'Gurnsub' at night to land on a pirate deck and rescue any captives they might have on board before the smoke from his jet engine cleared. Of course he operated in an area the pirates called 'the devils rectangle' -- No! I won't go on, it will be a cartoon one day and I dont want to spoil it for you!
One Saturday I told Len I was going to write a comedy script about all of this and commenced a'typin'.
I started off well enough, but then something strange happened -- I couldn't stop typing and the afternoon flew by. Suddenly Gurn became Guern, comedy became seriousness, and the bones of 'Guern of Atlantis' began to take shape inside my helpless fired up brain.
Now every Saturday afternoon was 'Guern time' and the ideas just flowed and flowed. Len started reading the script and making suggestions.He started writing songs to punctuate the storyline -- which from an innocent start got darker and darker.
The friendship between the principle men of good character in the story (James Robilliard and Crown Prince Aquilla of the House of Atlantis) grew and grew -- as did the evil plans of their protagonists -- Aquilla's half brother Sharpfin and the insane pirate Johnny Macnovatt.
Indeed, only the intervention of Aquilla in his sea chariot had... Well, there I go again.
Len and I spent a great deal of time living below the waves surrounding the Channel Islands in the seventeen hundreds and were sad to come home not knowing how things would turn out for our heroes until the following Saturdays installment, which by now was pretty much writing itself! (Also because the tea was inevitably burned to a crisp having been left in the oven too long!)
After just over a year, the story was completed along with the roughcuts of the songs, so let's go Atlantean! - Click the link!
...or home if you're bored.( lol)