Steam Wars - Notes

WRITING STEAM WARS

STEAM WARS has long been my dream project, that thing I’d get around to “when I finally found the time”. Every now and then I'd get attacked by its images, its sights and sounds, and add something new to the project. Like a couple months ago, when I came up with a logo and a new piece of artwork.

Recently, however I was unrelentingly possessed enough to finally dive into the thing I've wanted to do for a long time: the script. This past week I completed it.

For some time I've had a 30-page treatment. That's pretty long: a fairly detailed rundown of the movie. The basic story, the structure, have been in my head for a while. But no matter how much detail I thought I had, writing this screenplay truly crystallized the concept, forcing me to spackle in every last nook and cranny. No matter how much research I thought I'd done over the years, I still found myself doing more. As a result, the movie is now more real to me than it's ever been.

Throughout the writing I was consistently inspired (possessed, my wife might say). I find in some writing, music is a great aid and that was certainly the case here, mostly in the form of an almost 7 hour mix made specifically for this project. Most of that was from movie soundtracks (and a little classical); rousing, aggressive, spirited, suspenseful, driving, swashbuckling tracks from SPARTACUS, GUNS OF NAVARONE, MOBY DICK, RAMBO III, BLACK SHIELD OF FALWORTH, TREASURE ISLAND and on and on.

The finished script is 140 pages, and it's kind of nice to write something that's supposed to be that big (it is an epic swashbuckling action adventure after all). By contrast, the SKELETON movies, DARK AND STORMY NIGHT, SCREAMING FOREHEAD clock in around 75-85. I think up till now the longest scripts I'd written were my western IN THE NATIONS and film noir EDGE OF THE FRAME, at about 110 pages.

Because the primary conceit is so fantastic--Victorian warfare fought from giant steam powered war machines in the stylized form of ancient warriors--I felt the treatment of it should be completely practical, even matter of fact. The day-to-day running of a "steam rig" by a dedicated crew needed to be exactly as it would had they really existed in 1896. Other than the mode of warfare, everything else is as it would have been. The more realistic, the better.

I see this as a kind of "blue collar" scifi. I hesitate to even say scifi since the boilerplate here is so rusted and full of rivets. So deliberately low tech you can smell the coal burning. For a steam crewman, running a rig is difficult, strenuous, laborious, and often thankless--a far cry from the futuristic slickness of most scifi. The story follows three of these "everymen" in the US Steam Force, as they struggle along, losing one rig after another--each time assigned a bigger one. Staying with their POV allows us to experience firsthand different classifications of steam rig--from a small ajax class patrol rig to an 80-foot fighting goliath class. All in the shadow of the encroaching Prussian Empire, and the race to develop the biggest and the best.

It was interesting the way the structure fell into place, particularly Act III which--for the most part--is about a 40 page action climax. That sounds crazy; what audience could keep up with that? But it isn't nonstop--there are ebbs and flows, a natural rhythm that allows the viewer to breathe. Those 40 pages are, likewise, broken into three distinct sections. To say more about this would ruin the climax.

What was probably the most fun for me, and most challenging, was the mounting of the action scenes themselves. I'm a fan of "Rube Goldberg" chain reaction type setups (see RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK for good examples, on different scales) and STEAM WARS involved cross-cutting that was often complex, with quite a few elements falling into place at the same time, like dominos. This sometimes led to vigorous hair-pulling, but I think it was worth it. For me, it's the kind of cliffhanger excitement that we go to movies for in the first place.

I feel closer to making STEAM WARS than I ever have. Time to get to it.

--Larry Blamire

"...and there was little question that the powerful Prussian Empire's sudden interest in minerals was a direct result of its ever-increasing hunger for steam; enough steam to power its rapidly expanding steam fleet. But the seeming folly of the invasion of Canada through Hudson Bay, taking Ontario and much of Manitoba in 1896, opened not only a window to mining interests. It was a window to what was quickly becoming the new home of steam power: the United States. After all, America had practically invented the steam rig. Or at least refined it into the dependable gunrigs of the late 90's. And so it was with slightly more than good neighbor policy that the United States quickly rallied to Canada's defense. However, none of this lessened the surprise and disbelief at the soon rumored Prussian activity in the south, straining their already rather uneasy alliance with Mexico. Whatever would Chancellor Bismarck want in Texas?...

--from The Power of Steam, 1922, by Harrison Beech

"It is often said a rig stoker can say anything he pleases to a captain. After all, where would you find a replacement?"

--Toliver Randolph Cribbs, LT, USSF

"Get them a bigger rig"

--US Steam Force Commander Teddy Roosevelt upon learning that Tunney, Duff and Cribbs have lost another machine.

STEAM WARS GLOSSARY:

steam rig n : informal term for any of various late 19th Century steam-powered walking machines, usually military, generally anthropomorphic in shape, operated by a crew.

gunrig n : early 20th Century term for any of various armed steam-powered walking machines, having the general appearance of a large armored warrior, operated by a crew.

battlerig n : any larger class gunrig, usually carrying heavy artillery. A land battleship.

knothead n : slang term for a novice crewman on a steam rig. Origin believed to be from the number of lumps on the head received on the first few runs, before the crewman found his "land legs". This was often exacerbated by the initiate being given a heavy iron helmet by his helpful rigmates, for "protection".

rigmaten : fellow crewman on a steam rig.

runabout n :a small two-man operated steam rig. In military use, usually mounted with a Maxim or Vickers machinegun.

low adj : slang steam force term for "shore leave".

shutdown n : the state below IDLE on a steam rig, with all engines stopped and no steam production.

U.S.S.F. or USSF n pl but sin or pl in constr : abbreviation for United States Steam Force.

rig class n : steam force classification system, defining various sizes and characteristics of fighting rigs, most commonly; RUNABOUT, AJAX, HERCULES, GOLIATH, SAMSON and JUGGERNAUT.

steersman n : the pilot of a steam rig.

headcab n : the base of operations on a steam rig, generally the "head", where the steersman and commander sit, except on smaller rigs where they are one and the same. On battlerigs, the headcab crew can number up to a dozen.

cranesman n : steam crewman assigned with the task of operating the rig's "arms" or cranes. Divided on larger rigs between the port and starboard cranesmen.

ambulator n : formerly ambulation engineer. Steam crewman assigned the task of operating the "legs", overseeing the rig's general balance and walking.

chief fireman n : an enlisted man in the steam force of a rank corresponding to a chief petty officer in the navy or a noncommissioned officer in the army, whose job it is to oversee the stokers and the stokehold. Also called chief stoker.

rigshape adj [short for earlier rigshapen, fr. rig + shapen, archaic pp. of shape] : TRIM, TIDY.

gunnery sergeant n : a noncommissioned officer in the marine corps or steam force ranking above a staff sergeant and, in the former, below a first sergeant. In the latter, usually responsible for the maintenance of a rig's artillery.