Then for the first time, I spotted one on the web site of a professional Model and Prop Maker. It was part of his portfolio and not for sale. It was perfect, it didn't look like a plastic hat, it looked like the real thing. On browsing the rest of Dan's site I discovered a wealth of 2000AD related pieces, including a Lawgiver (Judge Dredd's side arm).
It was probably then that the idea started to hatch, "Wow, these are amazing, you'd only need a 'few more' bits and you'd have all you need to make a Judge Dredd film!"
I contacted Dan regards another item on his site, a classic Porsche 356. At the time I also had a nice example of the mark and it turned out we were in the same car club. Ironically, I have since sold my Porsche to help finance my other hobbies including the making of the film.
I managed to help Dan out with some graphic design work (my day job). I started discussing my 'filmmaking', as I called it, the fact being that I had only made one film and that was far from complete. We knocked around the idea of making a Judge Dredd based Fan Film, where we concentrated on a secondary (or even tertiary) character and that way avoided having to use Dredd.
I suggested one of my favourite characters Judge Minty. An aging Street Judge who is forced retire, seemingly because he has become too compassionate in his old age. Judge Minty takes 'the long walk' in to the radioactive wastes that surround Mega City One (we'll discuss him in more detail later). "We can shoot it in North Wales!" I said, "There are some areas around there that scream drama."
I was already trying to work out, in my head, ways we could make it cheap and simple, trying to learn from the lessons I had experienced on my first (current) project. However, with Dan's experience in prop & model making and being a fellow 2000AD fan he was soon expanding the idea far away from the smaller project I had first imagined.
The cogs were grinding into motion.
Fab stuff !!!!!
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