Postcards From The Future

08/29/05 00:00:00    

By Michael Mealling

p. Postcards from the Future is a new “large format” epic mini from director Alan Chan that will be out sometime in the first quarter of 2006. The film will chronicle the life of an ordinary guy who's job is to build out the power grid for a lunar settlement. Here's Alan's synopsis of the film:

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Sometime in the near future, humankind will set foot again on the Moon. As part of President Bush's new Vision for Space Exploration, they will build a permanent base on the moon, to test, research and invent new technologies for manned missions to Mars and beyond. The task will not be easy - there will be danger and hardships and broken lives, but these modern-day pioneers would have it no other way. Because for all the hardships that they must endure, they know that the Grand Vision extends beyond them - that they are but a small part of what makes man's future in the stars possible.

p. 'Postcards From The Future' attempts to share this epic undertaking with today's audience. We see the Grand Vision unfold over the course of two decades by following the life of one man - civilian electrical engineer Sean Everman. Entrusted with the task of helping to build out the power grid on the Moonbase, Sean occasionally sends “Video Postcards” and personal messages to his wife back on Earth, sharing with her the details, trials and tribulations of his jobs. Over the epic course of the story, these postcards from our possible future reveal in exquisite detail the grand adventure that we are about to embark on…

p. Postcards will be written and directed by Alan Chan, an industry visual effects veteran, whose feature film credits include Academy Award winning films such as Jim Cameron's “Titanic”, “Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers” and “Polar Express”.

p. You may have seen Alan's previous work if you 've seen Brad Edwards' space elevator talk recently since Alan's team did the digital animation work. You can see examples of it in this months IEEE Spectrum article A Hoist to the Heavens.