Precious Metalhead #16: Fed Logo, Animation, Porcfest

New Fed “Punisher” Logo

Somewhere in the middle of working our brains out to get this movie done, somehow, we finally saw this…  It has been hiding in plain sight for almost a hundred years, and I’ve been carrying it around in my pockets for almost half that.  No, I’m not talking about fiat currency – we were hip to that before it became cool.  No, I’m talking about the hidden Punisher logo inside of the Federal Reserve logo.  Once you see it, you’ll wonder what planet you were on for so long.

Look.  Just remove the surrounding circle from the current Fed logo, and all that’s left is an eagle sitting on a shield, or a funny hairpick thing with downward prongs.  In isolation, it looks a little wimpy.  I mean, the Eagle part is strong – the Nazis did that too, but I’m not going to drag Nazis into this blog.  More interesting is The Punisher, a Marvel Comics character, a vigilante with questionable methods and lots of weapons.  Well crikey – it practically looks the same – the Fed and the Punisher.  With a little anti-hero makeover, the Silver Circle crew can help the Fed look a lot stronger! How about this instead:

Is it possible that the founders of the Fed sat there on Jeckyll Island in 1913 to engineer not only the world’s largest bank cartel, but also a highly successful comic hero series?  Punisher came out in 1974, but these guys DO know how to hold on to a secret.

In any case we think it’s only fitting to upgrade the Fed of Silver Circle to this spiffy new image.  It emphasizes their core, and brings out the strength that they will need to manage a very angry public on the verge of hyperinflation in 2019.  The Fed of Silver Circle is in very serious monetary trouble, you see, so they have had to beef up security a bit.  Ask Robert Mugabe – when the money starts to fall apart, you have to tighten up.

We’ll put it everywhere in the movie – on their helicopters, on their goons, on their nationalized banks.  By the way, this is why it’s great to be animation – we can change all of this easily, trivially, long after shooting.

We’re even going to make our own t-shirts, that will look every bit as scary as the Marvel Punisher, even more so.  The first line of shirts will have a distressed logo on the front, and “Safety – Stability – Tyranny” on the back.  Because everybody wants to be safe and stable, right?

My real goal isn’t to sell you a t-shirt.  My goal is to make a kick-butt movie.  But it would entertain me forever if Ben Bernanke or one of the district bank presidents was seen jogging in one of these T’s.  And what if the Fed would change their seal to distance from our (fictional) seal?  That’s a lot of stone to re-carve, right?

Progress and Timing

As before, and as always, we are animating, rendering, compositing, editing our hearts out over here.  We have made so much progress, and there is still so much to do.  Our timing is still on mark for completion in the Fall, and it’s looking great.  We have just finished a brutal, beautiful fight scene, and an intricate, classy heist scene.  We are cranking out terabytes of video frames every night.  It’s just huge – next time somebody please remind me how hard it is to produce first-class animation with such a small crew.  But we wouldn’t have it any other way and the results will show for it, I know.

So – we are pushing towards a limited theatre release in August-September.  Depending on funding, it will play 17 cities across the US, followed by international, VOD, Online, DVD/Bluray.  We will push hard to win Toronto and Telluride – though the deadlines are now close.  Honestly, in our strategy, the theatre release and community support is much more important than the festivals.  So of course we will do everything we can to make a market success!

Porcfest Sequel Session with Stefan Molyneux

We are thinking a lot about the sequel too, and the geopolitical universe that it lives in.  I’m trying a lot of new ideas out right now and… it’s going to be a ride.  This kind of story is interesting and unique because it revolves around people like us… like people that are at PorcFest, but in more difficult future situations.

So, I really want to interact with more folks to figure this world out.  My idea, then, is to sit down with one of the most important envisioners of the future, Stefan Molneux, and whomever comes to this session at Porcfest to just talk it out.  While it will necessarily include a little in the way of spoilers, my goal is to interact in a roundtable fashion to explore what, for example, you and your principles and instincts would do in some post-SHTF situations.

We’re still figuring it out – but that’s the gist of it.  If you are at PorcFest, and want to interact, come on by at 2pm on Thursday in the Media Room!

Quick Notes:

• New Silver Round Design Coming: Reminder – we are developing the new face of our new one-ounce silver rounds.  Of course the new rounds will contain the same one troy ounce of .999 fine silver – with the same Golden State Mint – but when the movie releases we will retire the face die and bring on a new movie-release face.
• Distribution Fundraising: We are cranking up our efforts to ask major supporters to get Silver Circle out into the theaters.   Wish us the best – it’s a vital stage for the movie.
• New Shows: I will be at the Hard Assets show in New York next week, with the Hera Research booth.  Soon after, we will be brushing up on our Spanish language to promote Silver Circle at the Puerto Rico Comic Con.

Song of the Month – Agnostic Front: A Mi Manera

Between just finishing our final recording session, which did bring a bit of the Spanish language into Silver Circle, plus getting ready for 40,000 fans in Puerto Rico, I thought I’d do a Spanish language Hardcore song.

There are actually lots of great choices – but today it’s going to be A Mi Manera, by Agnostic Front.  It’s a translation of their own “My Life My Way,” which I can only imagine were in turn inspired by Johnny Rotten and originally by… Frank Sinatra.  You will be forgiven if you can’t hear the connection, but it’s there and it’s deep.

 

Thanks Again

Hang in there – we are coming in on this fast now – thanks for following!

Pasha.