District 9 director Neill Blomkamp is back with Oats Studios.
There wasThe Hire,one instalment of a series of shorts for the German car firm BMW.
And now theres Oats Studios: a new venture dedicated to creating experimental short films.
Im just not interested in that.
If theres anyone who really likes it, is there a way we can interact with them?
Can they give us designs for where they think some of the weird alien vehicles could go?
Do they have ideas of were a sequel may go?
And if theres anything in there that I like, we can incorporate that into what were doing.
And as a bonus, he also explains the mystery behind the dead creature in the puddle from 2010.
I love what Ive seen so far of OatsVolume One.Looks great.
Yeah, thank you.
Its a good little teaser for the weird stuff were working on here.
How long has it been in the pipeline before you announced it?
I guess weve been working for it for over two years.
Were in this weird warehouse that used to belong to a company that sold kitchen appliances.
So almost exactly two years.
So did you start on this straight afterChappie?
Its an interesting way to go.
Theres definitely no formula or precedent, really, for it.
But it doesnt come from a place of wanting to go back to short films.
Definitely not at the beginning.
That must be tricky especially with studios becoming more and more cautious about what they greenlight.
Ive kind of described as Oats Volume One, or maybe Oats Volume One and Two as an album.
Im just not interested in that.
You see what I mean?
Theres a massive difference.
So the best way of thinking about it is going down the road of trying to create.
I mean, we havent done that many pieces at the moment.
But its just expression.
A bunch of weird stuff.
And then I want to see online if theres a way to interact with people who like the stuff.
If theres anyone who really likes it, is there a way we can interact with them?
Can they give us designs for where they think some of the weird alien vehicles could go?
Do they have ideas of were a sequel may go?
And if theres anything in there that I like, we can incorporate that into what were doing.
So putting assets on Steam thats where all thats going to come in?
Well, it isnt quite as defined as that.
But theres millions of Spider-Man fans out there.
Our approach is the exact opposite of that.
Just so that it doesnt feel like its locked up in a vault somewhere.
Is it not limited to film, either.
It could be a videogame, Im guessing?
Everything is untested, so were not sure if Steam is the right approach.
Like, theres many layers of the discussion.
So one element is, how do you capitalise on the effort that weve put in so far?
So on iTunes you’ve got the option to only get the film.
So I think what were going to do right now is put everything on our YouTube page for free.
Like, all of the contact will be 100 percent for free.
Then well test on Steam whether theres any interest in some of the weirder ancillary things.
Maybe people may want, maybe they dont want them.
Well just sort of test that and see how that goes.
Were not even sure how were going to monetise stuff yet.
Its a transition for filmmakers in general.
You buy a movie ticket, or you click, for $5.99 or whatever, on iTunes.
You ingest two hours of material.
So the audience at the moment is very familiar with that process.
Theres just gigabytes, terabytes of data put out daily, of incoming content across all spectrums.
Theyre becoming one and the same.
Theres a lot more people watching mobile, cellphone-based stuff.
But you have to do that taking in the parameters of where the industry is at.
It seems to me that what youre doing could be a new way of doing things.
LikeDistrict 9:a good-looking film for a relatively small amount of money.
Mm-hmm.District 9was pretty cost-effective.
I mean,District 9price range is where you want to be.
you might take the audience to a different world.
So I think a lot of the ideas we have are naturally, inherently designed that way.
Theres one that sits outside that quite distinctly.
But everything else is in there.
I like the idea you seem to have in Volume One that is acting like an alternate Vietnam history.
Yeah, that piece is calledSaigon.
That piece is probably the most surreal piece of the ones thats coming out.
I wanted to do something that mixes surrealist cinema with science fiction withApocalypse Now.
So its experimental in terms of storytelling as well as the way youre delivering the content, then.
Yeah.Saigonwould be quite a difficult sell with a traditional studio.
Even the nature ofSaigonis quite experimental.
I dont know if theyre told unconventionally.
And then theres other pieces a bunch of smaller pieces, that are just weird.
Theyre almost comedy, actually.
Have you looked at some of the reactions to what youve released so far?
The whole project is the 35 of us in this warehouse in Vancouver.
We are the company.
Every element that people associate with a normal studio is just us.
Like, the primary thing is that I love what Im doing.
Thats the solid data that I want.
There seems to be some inspiration fromAliensin there, which I liked.
What Im trying to say is, theres no conscious connection toAlien.
Youve got a great cast in here that flies by almost casually.
Sigourney Weaver, Dakota Fanning.
Can you say which pieces theyre in?
Wired has a thing where they have a guest artist to do a page of art for each issue.
And the artist has to incorporate the number of each issue into the artwork.
And so they came to me and typically, until that date, it was pre- iPad publication.
It was only physical Wired magazine.
So they asked did I want to do a video as well as a still.
Which was random discovery of something very strange.
That was part of a bigger idea.
So that actually has a place to go, but not at the moment.
I remember poring over it at the time, thinking is this a clue?
What is this pointing towards?
So Im glad you solved the mystery!Neill Blomkamp, thank you very much.
More from Neill Blomkamp at Den Of Geek shortly…