Month: May 2014

The finished film and the dark arts of post-production

Last night I was invited to a screening room at Molinare, where I was lucky enough to sit with a few of the folks who’ve been working these past few months like hyperactive worker bees on Red Bull as they put the final polish on ROBOT OVERLORDS. The ADR, the sound effects, the sound mixing, the score, the VFX and the grading. All of these dark arts have finally come together to present the finished film. I can’t see into the future, so I don’t know if the movie will be a massive hit, a red-stinger of a bellyflop, or the kind of film that sneaks into cinemas for a fortnight and then disappears forever, only to sporadically reappear on cable TV on Sunday afternoons like some celluloid spectre. But I can tell you that we’ve made the film that we set out to create. A fun adventure for the young at heart. And these final flourishes have elevated it to a whole new level of incredibleness*, making me grin like a loon throughout as I watched. It’s funny, thrilling, moving and a feast for the eyes and ears (see it in a cinema with the best sound system you can find!). I hoped it would be good. I had no idea it could be this good. So many people have worked above and beyond the call of duty to make it happen. It deserves to be seen and enjoyed, and I throw myself prostrate at the mighty gods of cinema in the hope that it will. The very moment that we have any news on a firm release date, I shall shout it from the rooftops. In the meantime, here’s a fuzzy photo of Paddy’s hand on the first day of filming as he prepares to take a pic of the first clapperboard of the shoot (don’t say I never give you exclusives)…

Aaaaaaaaand action!
Aaaaaaaaand action!

*Shakespeare invented words. So can I…

Robot Overlords – The Book of the Film!

Hurrah and huzzah, now that the PR gods have finally announced it from on high – for we must all wait upon such things in these times of heightened, super-whizzy media – I can now talk about the film tie-in novel of ROBOT OVERLORDS wot I wrote.

First of all, let us gaze upon the awesomeness of the cover art…

It's a robot... a big one!
It’s a robot… a big one!

The Sentry robot was kindly donated and posed by the good folk at Nvizible (laser weapon, model’s own), and the rest was co-ordinated and designed by Nick May of the Orion art department and the wizards at Blacksheep Design, who’ve won awards for all sorts of cool covers, not least Adam Roberts’ JACK GLASS, one of my favourites of last year.

The book has been huge fun to write and, in the tradition of my favourite tie-in novels, will expand on scenes and characters from the film, as well having plenty of new material completely original to the book. My hope is that the book and film will complement one another, so if there’s a moment in the film that leaves you wanting to know more, you’ll find it in the book.

Tie-in novels are usually a late addition to a publishers’ schedule, often written in a rush by an outside writer. So I am very grateful that Gollancz took a punt early on in the process, and gave the go-ahead to this while we were still shooting the film. It’s given me the time to write the book I wanted to and, thanks to the brilliant editing of Gillian Redfearn and the copy-editing skills of Lisa Rogers, it’s become a much better book than I could have hoped for.

It’ll be available in paperback and eBook, and there might even be an audio edition. The publication date will be as per the release of the film. We’re saying February 2015 at the moment, but that will almost certainly change. There might even be a special edition with some top secret added extras. I’ll be sure to update here with any news as soon as I get it, and be sure to follow @Robot_Overlords on Twitter for news about the film.

 

We’re (not) doing a sequel… Robot Warlords!

UPDATE NOVEMBER 2023: The bad news is neither the sequel or the proposed TV series will happen. A shame, but that’s what I get for getting excited too soon!

Last week Tempo Productions announced that there will be a sequel to ROBOT OVERLORDS, called ROBOT WARLORDS coming in 2016!

Robot Warlords

And not only that, it’s the second part of a trilogy.

But, I hear you cry, the first one isn’t even out yet. How on Earth can you be working on a sequel already? Let’s just say that now that we’ve almost finished post-production, our beloved producers are feeling very bullish about ROBOT OVERLORDS. And, like our mechanical antagonists, they are bent on world domination… or a movie franchise at the very least.

Of course, the writer side of me will believe it when I’m on set and Jon is behind the camera again… But we’re working hard on the script and I think it’s going to be a belter.

There’s no casting news or plot details yet, and we’re unlikely to release any further news for quite some time as it’s all tip-top secret. For all Robots news I’d normally tell you to follow @Robot_Overlords on Twitter, but frankly it’s always @DocFourFour who hears about this stuff before I do, so I would also advise that you follow him! He’s a background artist on Robots, Grabbers, Game of Thrones and The Fall, amongst many others, and a top bloke to boot.

So, until we get more definite news, I’ll be humming this wonderful tune…

Update: I’ve been reminded that Laurence’s extra-partner-in-crime Michael Stuart also alerted me that Robot Warlords was on IMDb… so follow him too @MichaelStuart69!