You may not know Fede Ponce by name, but you have surely seen his work — in the main titles of many recent Marvel films. “Fede has been in the entertainment industry for more than 15 years,” said Nacho Abia, part of the crew of Ponce’s upcoming project. “And he is humbled by having had the lucky opportunity to work on some of the biggest blockbusters to date.”
Ponce has been working on, literally, a dream project of his — Sebastian: The Slumberland Odyssey — which will soon launch as a Kickstarter campaign. The project was described by his creator as a mixture of science-fiction and fantasy.
The Slumberland Odyssey is the first ‘Sci-Fan’ tale to take the viewer on a mind-bending adventure through two worlds that have seldom been intertwined before. One world is the future, where thanks to the miracle of sentient A.I., humanity has finally united in overcoming war, poverty and disease. With one small price to pay… The citizens of the Earth have forgone their ability to dream. And with just cause, since unauthorized dreaming is now punishable by death.
However there is a legend — a legend of a world that exists beyond the reach of the A.I. A world known as Slumberland. It is a realm created from the remainder of human dreams and desires, a place where the last unassimilated renegades escape to in the middle of the night.
It is there that men search for the remaining scraps of human emotion in hopes of saving the last glimmers of imagination. Our story begins in a small house on the outskirts of the city of Vigilas. There, Sebastian and Mika — two unassimilated siblings thick as thieves and a few years apart — take turns assisting their mysteriously ill grandfather, as the try in vain to suppress their imagination and risk being discovered by the A.I. But the clock is ticking and danger looms near… for neither sibling can stop themselves from dreaming. When the A.I. senses their dreamwaves, Mika inexplicably disappears, leaving Sebastian and his grandfather alone. Despite the impending danger, the old man tasks Sebastian to venture into Slumberland and obtain a magical cure before his time runs out. Armed with only his wits, Sebastian enters a world where anything is possible… where both adventure and deadly peril await him. Terrible Nightmares with the power to devour him… and lost remnants of Imagination.. with the power to save him.
Monster Legacy had the great chance to have a little chat with the director about the project.
ML: What inspired you to create the concept of this story?
Fede: The story began a long time ago, when my younger brother and I were separated by the circumstances of life. I moved to the US and he remained in Mexico. We wouldn’t see each other very often so when we did our time was precious. I would spend the days playing with him and at nights I would tell him stories about two brothers who always had adventures in Slumberland, no matter where they went. It was a way for me to connect with him and share a world despite the distance or time.
ML: The premise to the story is certainly intriguing and juxtaposes two very different visual concepts. How are you going to balance practical and digital effects in bringing your vision to life?
Fede: Currently, there is no company signed up to do them — but my dream is to work with Mike Elizalde at Spectral Motion. I showed him the project a while ago and he liked it. I would be very interested to see what he thinks now. There are a ton of practical effects wizards out there — like Jordu Schell whom I took a course with, and the people at Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. The dream is to combine their talents with top notch visual effects. There is something about practical effects to me that has a type of gravity that to this day is hard to replicate in CG. I think it’s also really helpful for the actors to interact with the character rather than a dude in green spandex. A lot of the characters that have ‘meshed’ with the provenance need heavy prosthetics as you can see on Leezo’s concept art. Practical work will be paramount.
ML: what can you tease about the creatures we are going to see?
Fede: Bruno the dog is a magnificent Pegasus Dog! How would you not want to see that! And Jynx is a spliced cat with traits from other animals. Trust me, it will be visually delightful. I am thinking of a way to do an incredibly light rig to create real world wings for the dog. At the moment we have concept art for Timor Alkimos — the half-fish half-ruffian — and the mermaid’s tail, which was created by Jorge Siller — an incredible artist who worked on the Resident Evil movies. We also have bunch of concept art for other creatures. But the real juice will come from the Slumberland Bestiary a book I want to develop as well.
ML: What’s your goal with the project?
Fede: I want to change the paradigm on how a Cinematic universe is created — by giving backers unprecedented access to the production and creative process. We will first create a pilot episode that introduces the viewer to this new world and an accompanying 50 page full-color graphic novel that explains the origins of the provenance. There are stretch goals that include more volumes for the graphic novel and more episodes for the series, gaming cards with more character back stories, maps of slumberland and vigilas and more. But let’s start with step one!
Be also sure to visit The Slumberland Odyssey Tumblr page, as well as the Facebook page of the project with constant updates!
Here are also links to the websites of some of the artists who have worked, and continue working on the project:
