A fun combination of characters, setting, and a story to make you smile. This fantasy from Austria and Ireland is a wonderful short film for the entire family.
The Secret Box: The Rise of Paperboy was screened at the 2019 Filmquest film festival (website) where it was nominated for Best Fantasy Short, Best Score, Best Production Design/Art Direction, and Best Costumes.
Synopsis: An abandoned street-kid in the docks of New England, Codie 'Paperboy' Basket is present when an adventurer T. Huxley and his bunch of henchmen fail to open a lost wooden box.
The director, Georg Leitgeb, provided some insights to his short film and some of his personal history and inspirations. I have to also say I admired his hats at the festival.
What was the inspiration for A Secret Box: The Rise of Paperboy?
For the last 7 years I was collecting Design-Samples from advertising and entertainment of the 20s right up to the 80s. Pulp literature, comics or old vintage package-designs. With elements of this wild mix and an emphasis on adventure, sci-fi and mystery storytelling, I created a narrative Retro-Brand.
The emotional trigger was to illustrate playful stories for all ages filled with adventure and nostalgia. Settings and characters which remember us of the days when we hung out in treehouses, looked for buried treasures and discovered something new every day.
Out of this emotional inspiration, grew also a strategic need. Building this narrative world called KTC®Universe together with a group of international creatives, I noticed that we would need a high-quality Prototype to test some ideas and aspects for our industry partners. But we didn't want to put all the effort and money into something that might end up as just a test-run. On top of that, our world needed to be introduced to our audience sooner or later anyway. So, we decided to build a storyline and a setting for a smaller entertainment piece. Containing all our creative aspects to set a tone and style for something that can grow. So, all these aspects worked like a checklist for me, when developing this first entertainment piece. The outcome was 'The Secret Box' cross-media trilogy, which opens a door into the narrative world of KTC®Universe to give our first audience something to be entertained by. One can even say that my position as the leading creative producer, writer and director of this trilogy grew organically—a little bit like laying bricks around yourself in a circle and when you wake up, you're standing on top of a tower.
What project(s) do you have coming up you're excited about?
The one that I'm most excited about, when it comes to world-building, is a mystery-horror series, where I'm currently building the universe, designs and the storyline. It's set in the 60s and 70s in the New Orleans swamplands.
In terms of directing, I've got a finished 3rd draft screenplay lined up in good shape, which is currently looking for a major producer. When it comes to writing and showrunning, I'm involved as a co-creator of a mystery-sci-fi series, which has landed on the desk of an international streaming-network to be optioned.
What was your early inspiration for pursuing a career in film?
Because I'm combining writing, design and directing as a creator, this is really hard to answer. To design something, came pretty early as a kid between 6 to 10. It came organically, when I started to scribble and drew my own hideouts on paper or drafted a pirate fortress or spaceship. Then throughout the years, my interests gravitated more into music and film. When I was 17, I edited my first small skateboard films and music-videos. This hobby led me to studying theatre, film and media in Vienna. And finally, the idea of writing complex and mind-twisting stories joined design and filmmaking around 2009, where I began to mold narrative settings from scratch in combining all the three disciplines. Now looking back, when I create a setup for one of my films, I notice that I'm doing the same thing that I did when I was 10: drafting a pirate fortress or a treehouse or a hide out. But now I'm able to turn these ideas into a storyline that can be told to an audience.
What would be your dream project?
The way I see it, my dream project better always be the next project that I have in sight and that is possible to reach. Because, when a new opportunity knocks or an offer, I ask myself the question: Can I turn this into my next 'dream project?' If the story or the tone does not fit my workflow, style or mindset, then I don't do it. If I find enough aspects of my own brand in such a project, I immediately pour all my creativity into it. At a certain point I can get quite obsessed with such projects, but this obsession is a positive energy for me. And step by step this becomes a dream project because of that. But of course, there's always something called 'The endgame' or 'the goal' that you pursue in a career. I think my goal in this is, to be well connected in the international entertainment market and to have access to all tools, facilities and materials needed for my creative-teams, to turn my worlds and stories into well-made entertainment, which gets a wide audience excited and hooked.
What are some of your favorite pastimes when not working on a movie?
Beside my work as a world-builder and storyteller, in my twenties, I was quite busy with DJ-Lines in Austrian indie-alternative clubs. I played guitar in a small local punk band and I wrote for an Austrian music-online platform where I reviewed LPs and music festivals. These activities were a great add on to my studies in filmmaking and from 2005 to 2013 was pretty much the time where quality of indie and alternative guitar music peaked. So, I'm happy to have those memories. Sometimes I still host a couple of DJ-Lines, to bring myself back into this time.
What is one of your favorite movies and why?
One of my favourite movies, which is also a big inspiration when it comes to my work as a filmmaker is Steven Spielberg's Hook. The story structure is so well balanced, every plot point is marked by suitable key-line in the dialogue and the theme is totally universal. There are so many big key-moments, where the performance of Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman is nailed and perfectly underlined by Williams' Score.
You can find out more about The Secret Box: The Rise of Paperboy on the following sites.
Facebook (link)
Instagram (link)
IMDB (link)
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