Calling all neuromancers, cyber-iKids, myspace idorus, razormoms, mirrorshaded tech support wizzes, interzonal neverwintermutes, guitar anti-heroes, starving locative Youtube artists, and professional Azeroth expatriots.

Photo-actors for spooky Chatsubo reconstruction wanted!

The next episode(s) of the Twilight Maze web series will be centered (territorially and thematically) in a sort of... "collective hallucination" of the Chatsubo; the bar that Case shoulders his way into beneath the dead-channel sky at the beginning of Gibson's Neuromancer. The core idea is: Imagine all the characters that inhabited the "cyberpunk" (in it's loosest possible semantic) worlds in all the books, movies, anime, and minds of the 80's and early 90's tore away into a closed "Dark Net" of sorts. Then imagine that all of these characters were jacked into reality circa 2005 and had to deal with the "alternate future" shock up to present day (2008). How would they adapt? Would Tally Isham start a Youtube cam? Would all those chromed-out hipster cyberpunks pick up iPhones and get strung out on WoW? Would all those AIs be running WoW farming / international WoW cyber-crime operations? Would all those cybernetic limbs be converted into super-enhanced Guitar Hero and Rock Band playing devices?

Keep in mind all of this is metaphorical and the tone of the series is highly surreal, so we don't need a literal, completely realistic scenario. Creativity highly encouraged.

If you're interested, just post or e-mail me a brief description of the character, then what I'll basically need is an image or images of your character. You can do the costume however you want; just throw on your 80's night club get-up, cosplay, do some Photoshop magic, whatever you want. Keep in mind these characters will mostly be in the background, mostly sitting down at the bar or at a table, or maybe playing one of the arcade games. The background doesn't really matter as I'll just cut the character out but a single, solid matte color makes things easiest. The lighting also isn't too terribly critical but just try for an approximation of what you might find in that bar. Stylistically, I'm going for a very 80's dark tones with bombarding neon (ala Bladerunner) although I'll do the manipulation and such later so you don't need to.


Some rough mock ups:






The first few paragraphs of Neuromancer for reference:


CHIBA CITY BLUES
1.
The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned
to a dead channel.
"It's not like I'm using," Case heard someone say, as he
shouldered his way through the crowd around the door of the
Chat. "It's like my body's developed this massive drug deficiency."
It was a Sprawl voice and a Sprawl joke. The Chatsubo
was a bar for professional expatriates; you could drink there
for a week and never hear two words in Japanese.
Ratz was tending bar, his prosthetic arm jerking monotonously
as he filled a tray of glasses with draft Kirin. He saw
Case and smiled, his teeth a web work of East European steel
and brown decay. Case found a place at the bar, between the
unlikely tan on one of Lonny Zone's whores and the crisp naval
uniform of a tall African whose cheekbones were ridged with
Joe boys," Ratz said, shoving a draft across the bar with his
good hand. "Maybe some business with you, Case?"
Case shrugged. The girl to his right giggled and nudged
The bartender's smile widened. His ugliness was the stuff
of legend. In an age of affordable beauty, there was something
heraldic about his lack of it. The antique arm whined as he
reached for another mug. It was a Russian military prosthesis,
a seven-function force-feedback manipulator, cased in grubby
pink plastic. "You are too much the artiste, Herr Case." Ratz
grunted; the sound served him as laughter. He scratched his
overhang of white-shirted belly with the pink claw. "You are
the artiste of the slightly funny deal."
"Sure," Case said, and sipped his beer. "Somebody's gotta
be funny around here. Sure the fuck isn't you."
The whore's giggle went up an octave.
"Isn't you either, sister. So you vanish, okay? Zone, he's
a close personal friend of mine."
She looked Case in the eye and made the softest possible
spitting sound, her lips barely moving. But she left.
"Jesus," Case said, "what kind a creep joint you running here?
Man can't have a drink."
"Ha," Ratz said, swabbing the scarred wood with a rag,
"Zone shows a percentage. You I let work here for entertainment
value."
As Case was picking up his beer, one of those strange
instants of silence descended, as though a hundred unrelated
conversations had simultaneously arrived at the same pause.
Then the whore's giggle rang out, tinged with a certain hysteria.
Ratz grunted. "An angel passed."
"The Chinese," bellowed a drunken Australian, "Chinese
bloody invented nerve-splicing. Give me the mainland for a
nerve job any day. Fix you right, mate...."
"Now that," Case said to his glass, all his bitterness suddenly
rising in him like bile, "that is so much bullshit."
The Japanese had already forgotten more neurosurgery than
the Chinese had ever known. The black clinics of Chiba were
the cutting edge, whole bodies of technique supplanted monthly,
and still they couldn't repair the damage he'd suffered in that
Memphis hotel.
A year here and he still dreamed of cyberspace, hope fading
nightly. All the speed he took, all the turns he'd taken and the
corners he'd cut in Night City, and still he'd see the matrix in
his sleep, bright lattices of logic unfolding across that colorless
void.... The Sprawl was a long strange way home over the
Pacific now, and he was no console man, no cyberspace cowboy.
Just another hustler, trying to make it through. But the
dreams came on in the Japanese night like live wire voodoo
and he'd cry for it, cry in his sleep, and wake alone in the
dark, curled in his capsule in some coffin hotel, his hands
clawed into the bedslab, temper foam bunched between his fingers,
trying to reach the console that wasn't there.


The rough script for the scenes can be found in this thread

This message has been edited. Last edited by: TwiliteMinotaur,

I'll take new photos, and I have new glasses, but let me know if you can use a bit of tis guy for anything:

Hellz yes! That shades is all win. Do you have a laptop he could be using or some such? the flashier the better.

Done - pix tomorrow.

Fantastic, thanks.

I'll be torching the crème brûlées in the background!

Excellent! (I mean that in a completely Keanu Reeves way)

Holy crap is that a cyberpunk blow-dryer?!?!? I could've sworn you just escaped from New York with that thing.

The hair is also all kinds of awesome.

I had this on my computer.

I want to be in this!

Can you give me some time to take a decent photo? I just had a weave done in my hair and it looks superawesome. I'll work the crazy makeup and possibly a hat.

Sweettastic, you get an honorary extension.

Thanks....It's just this whole visa thing...I've been busy.

Will take a pic tomorrow after my visa run to the Belgian Embassy.

hrm....I'll get on this...

Very cool. I cannot wait to see what you create with these. If my digital camera were not so crappy I would contribute.

Photos sent

this looks fun

You bet your deck it is! Jack in!

Can you use this rather large shot of the side of my head?

Hm, yeah possibly, the look itself is working. if possible see if you can get half or full body shots.

You're welcome to use this one as well.

Thanks!

Shoot, sorry I didn't see your emails earlier Bravus! Thanks!